We Belong together
by Charlie Hayden
Summary: It has been five years since Logan walked away from Rory. Now back in Hartford, Logan finds himself running into the one that got away and learning that there still exists ties to her in the names of Nick and Nora Gilmore. Not going to update any time soon.
1. Prologue

_**A/N**: A new story. I hope all Gilmore Girls fans reading this enjoys. I'm not writing Gilmore centric here, mainly because I'm trying to explore characters the show didn't explore too well. so, not too much Stars Hallow, Lorelai, Luke, Emily or Richard. They only make cameo appearances. This is mostly Rory and Logan centric_.

_**Warnings**_!_ Minor language and Character Death will appear in this story. _

* * *

To my child,

I really have no idea what to call you, really, so I guess the easiest thing to call you is 'Kid'. I only found out three weeks ago that I was pregnant and it hasn't fully set in yet. You're too small for me to know if you are a boy or girl yet and I haven't even considered a name for you, sorry. Your father would have a list of them already, if he knew, and I would laugh or reject them. He has a flair for that. Unfortunately I haven't told him about you. That is in no way due to my lack of trying. Believe me, Kid, I tried so many different ways. I called his cell and left voice mails for him to call me back but he hasn't answered. I emailed him and even wrote him a letter through snail mail, but still no answer. I think he's still mad at me for turning down his proposal but really, the all-or-nothing thing really bugged me. Who does that? Say marry me or its over? We were together for three years, I guess he expected us to get married then, everyone did. But I just needed to figure some things out first. And it's not like we had the perfect relationship and didn't love each other. You have to understand, we did-do. I know that you may doubt that one day. I certainly did with my parents. Mom and Dad always had this complected relationship and they didn't mean for it to hurt me, but it did.

Anyway, I promise to be the best mom and I had the best example. Your grandmother is amazing and I don't have to tell you, you'll know that for sure yourself. She had me very young and always managed to make sure that I had everything that I needed without any intervention from her parents. She left their house with me and ended up in Stars Hallow, where she pestered the owner of the Independence Inn for a job, any job, to support me. And for dramatic effect, she had me, perfectly visible, in her arms. She worked her way up from being a maid living in the potting shed to running the place. She taught me everything about life and I'll most likely be the same with you. If my mom could do it at sixteen, alone, and with no job skills then so can I at twenty-two with a Yale degree in journalism even if I'm currently unemployed.

Oh I had a job. The dream. I was going to cover the campaign of Barack Obama. But when I found out that I was pregnant, that went out the window. Hugo couldn't have a pregnant woman covering things on minimal salary and living from cheep hotel room to cheep hotel room and traveling on a bus. That, and your birth will coincide with the campaigns heating up, the start of the primary season. I didn't need to be out doing the most difficult part of my job nine months pregnant or just having a kid.

So I lost that job, but even with Hugo letting me go, I probably wouldn't have stayed long. I need to take care of you in a stable environment. Now if only I could get a hold of your dad. I refuse to go to his parents. Mitchum might offer me money to have an abortion, I don't know, it just seems like something he would do. That would be your dad's dad. He reminds me of my dad's father.

I only met Straub once and he managed to make me feel smaller than a pebble. He blamed me and my mom for ruining his plans for Dad and even sixteen years later, he was still bitter about it. I have no doubt that your dad's family would feel the same way. See, your dad walked away from the life they planned for him and moved to California and they never liked me much either, they would no doubt be unhappy about you, I can just see it. I can just hear Mitchum and Elias ranting about how if it wasn't for me then your dad would still be with the family company like Straub shouting that how Mom having me instead of getting an abortion ruined Dad's life and how Dad was supposed to go to Princeton and that all Hayden men attended Princeton blah blah blah. If I have it my way, they will never do that around you.

From now on, you are my first priority. I'm going to make sure that you want for nothing and give you the security and stability that you need. I'll be there for everything and be your pal. I'll be the person you run to, the one you can count on. I'll give you the freedom to make your decisions once you prove yourself capable. There will be nothing that you can't do or be. I promise.

Love always,

your Mom

P.S. I'm sitting here with a copy of Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man-your dad left it behind-in my lap and I'm flipping through it while I write this and I think I have some ideas on what to call you. Tell me what you think later on. 


	2. Home Sweet Hartford

_**A/N**: A new story. I hope all Gilmore Girls fans reading this enjoys. I'm not writing Gilmore centric here, mainly because I'm trying to explore characters the show didn't explore too well. so, not too much Stars Hallow, Lorelai, Luke, Emily or Richard. They only make cameo appearances. This is mostly Rory and Logan centric_.

_**Warnings**_!_ Minor language and Character Death will appear in this story. _

* * *

Logan Huntzberger stood at the corner window in his new office with his arms crossed as he surveyed the view. Hartford was home, but San Francisco was a bustling metropolis with so much to offer. The beach was miles away, not just down the street, and everyone here wore suits and ties, not causal or even beach attire. Not that it was entirely appropriate for the weather, but that was only part of it. It was the base attitude of the region. West coast was work hard and and play harder. On the East Coast, it was work hard and retreat to strategize until the next day. Work here was like a war zone, and the five years away from it only brought home how difficult this life as the heir to the empire was going to be.

To all accounts that spread of his relocation, he should be happy but he found himself feeling nothing for the first time in his life and that was something that always scared him. For a minute he thought he really would turn into his father before his thoughts turned to the temporary residence he had taken up until he could find something more permanent and the numerous boxes and bags he had brought with him from California. Colin and Finn were supposed to meet him for dinner and drinks before they started work on some of the boxes. Logan hadn't seen Colin or Finn in a long time and they had some catching up to do. But even the anticipation of the evening was being held off while he surveyed the new office, a hallway down from his father's. The close proximity to Mitchum Huntzberger was enough to set anyone on edge, more so for his son who hadn't spoken to him for three years.

The whole office whispered about nepotism and thought Logan didn't hear it, but he did. He knew that everyone expected him to be just like his father and it was a point Logan vowed to disprove. His father and he were like night and day and anyone who knew either of them would know it. Logan didn't even want this job but like so many other things in his life, this was forced upon him. When HPG bought the company Logan was working for, his father had decided to promote Logan to COO. Which meant more responsibility and even though Logan knew that it was actually nepotism that landed him the gig, he also knew that he deserved it. He had joined a small promising company and became instrumental in tripling its size just by his own expertise as heir to the Huntzberger legacy. Now it seemed that his predestined role would be closing in on him, according to his father, in the next five to ten years.

Taking a deep breath, Logan ran a hand through his hair and turned away from the window to his neat, new desk. There were some things that would have to go from it and then to the box of stuff he had brought in this morning to make this office more of his own. But first, he needed some coffee. Walking out of the office, he ignored the newly appointed secretary, Gail, and walked straight to the break room to grab his own coffee and spotted a few of HPG's finest employees milled about and talking gossip. All stopped talking and froze when they saw him. Walking straight to the coffee pot, he grabbed a cup from the sink and poured himself some fresh coffee. "Oh don't stop on the account of me," he said pleasantly as he inhaled the fresh aroma and smiled, memories hitting him. He then proceeded to fix the coffee to his liking. Two spoonfuls of sugar and one small one of creamer. He turned to give them all a pleasant smile. "I'm just the Boss's son, no where near as threatening," he said and gave them a nod before walking back to his office. He set the cup down on the desk before digging into the box, his eyes glancing at the shiny gold nameplate, a gift from his father upon the promotion. After all, an important business man needs one of those.

The first thing he took out of the box was a wooden plaque with the words "There is only one success-to be able to spend your life in your own way" on it. It was a gift from Rory when he first went to London, and he had kept it with him the whole time, hung up in whatever office he occupied. He glanced around and found the perfect spot, and made a note. As he thought about it, he noted just how much he hated this office. The former COO, Bill Hardy, had horrible taste. Logan rounded the desk and looked up maintenance. If he was going to work within this office then he was going to be comfortable doing so. A little paint job and some new office furniture would do the trick nicely. Maybe some plants here and there to spruce things up too. As he thought about the spruce up, a framed picture caught his eye and he picked it up. The happy couple staring back at him was like a slap to the face. Sitting down, he tried to think of what he would say when they ran into each other. Not seeing Rory Gilmore in California was easy. Here in Hartford? Impossible.

* * *

"Oh, another good one!" Rory called as two blinking children climbed down the stairs in their new school uniforms. The boy rubbing at his eyes furiously with one hand and yanking at the tie that was around his neck, having not yet figured out how to undo it.

"Wow, you sure you have enough pictures?"

"Oh hush!" Rory chided her mother who stood behind her and took another one of her children after they reached the bottom of the stairs and grabbed their backpacks. "Remember all the ones you have of me?" she asked as she sighed happily. "Their first day of school, this is going to be heavily documented," she gushed as she looked through the pictures. "Ah, I have really outdone myself, every one of these is a keeper," and then she took another.

"Here we go, one peanut butter and banana on white with a helping of fries and one turkey and Cheddar on white, also with a helping of fries and two nutter bars each," Luke announced as he handed a bagged lunch to each child.

"Thank you Grampa Luke!" both children chorused. Both of Rory's kids had started calling Luke Grampa when they were three and hadn't stopped and they each called Christopher G-Pa and Richard and Emily were Grams and Gramps. Lorelai had taught the twins to call her Gemma Lorelai the day they started talking, claiming that it sounded better than Grandma since she felt that she was too young to be called Grandma.

"Okay, do you have everything? Do we have to run a checklist?" Rory asked as she set the camera down and squatted down in front of the twins to check to see if everything was there in the backpacks. "Pencils, colored and none colored, check, check. Pencil sharpeners, check. Erasers, check. Crayons, check. Paper, construction and lined, check, check. Glue sticks, check. She stood up. "Everything is there. Are you two ready?" she asked all too eagerly. Both twins nodded in response. Rory held her hands together as she took this moment in. "Oh the first day of the start of your academic careers," she gushed.

"You know, if you don't stop gushing and get into that car, you're going to make them late on their first day," Lorelai pointed out.

A look of horror crossed Rory's face as she considered this and looked at her watch. "Oh my gosh!" she cried, realizing the time and hurriedly ushered the twins towards the door and to the waiting car.

* * *

Lunch at the club wasn't something that Logan had been anticipating when Honor had called to schedule but here he was, sitting in the dining room of said club, filled with Hartford's elite. Out of the corner of his eye he spied Emily Gilmore with some of her DAR friends and he kept his back turned to her in case she spotted him. This was the one place he knew he would run into the Gilmores and that was something he wasn't ready for. He swallowed another mouthful of the scotch he had ordered and signaled to the waiter as he waited for Honor to arrive.

As another glass of scotch was set down in front of him and he grabbed it, he froze upon seeing her walk in. The one that got away. She had cut her hair and lightened it since he last saw her. And there were definite curls. She was dressed in a gray pencil skirt, a mint-ish blouse that was belted, a grayish jacket to match the skirt and Mary Jane heels that he remembered so well. He watched her as she looked around the room, tucking her hair behind her ear as she did so. Then she spotted her subject and shouldered her purse making a bee line towards Emily Gilmore. She didn't see him or gave no indication that she did, if she did. Logan continued to watch her as she sat down with her grandmother and the DAR ladies. Was she still in the DAR? Did she have lunch here with them regularly? Swallowing his scotch, Logan continued to ponder the enigma of his ex-girlfriend's daily social schedule when he was interrupted.

"Who ever knew that making phone calls could be so exhausting!"

Logan turned his attention away from the Gilmore women and to his sister who was pulling out a cigarette and searching for her lighter. "You know that's why Mom has cancer, right?" he asked.

Honor looked at him and the glass of scotch in his hand. "And what _you're_ doing causes addiction and liver problems," she pointed out.

"Point taken," Logan said as he set his glass back down and signaled to the waiter, his eyes falling back to Rory and seeing her laugh at something. His gaze lingered before he forced himself to turn back to Honor who had found her lighter and was now puffing of her cigarette. "How's Mom? I haven't gotten a chance to see her yet." he asked.

"No different than she has been for the past year. She refuses to see people and has cut herself off socially. She even moved into a different wing from Dad," Honor told him. She took another drag before continuing. "The chemo seems to be taking a toll on her. I told her you were back, leaving out the tiny detail of Dad forcing your hand, and she wants to see you and it seems important enough."

"I promise to see her as soon as possible," Logan told her as a waiter walked towards them.

"That's what you've been saying for the past year, Logan," Honor pointed out, leaning over the table towards him, holding her cigarette out as she did so.

"I'm sorry, Miss.."

"It's Mrs. Preston," Honor corrected the man.

"Mrs. Preston," the waiter corrected. "I'm sorry, but we don't allow smoking inside," he informed her.

"For all the money my father puts into this place I think I have to right to smoke inside," Honor told him.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Preston, but there are rules..."

Honor looked at the man shrewdly. "Do you know who my father is?" she demanded and didn't even wait for a response. "My father is Mitchum Huntzberger," she deadpanned and tilted her chin. "That's right, he's the reason you have a job and won't have a job if you continue to pester me about rules."

"Honor.." Logan started.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Preston, but the rules are that no one is allowed to smoke inside; the second hand smoke bothers the other members," the waiter stammered.

"You're sorry..." Honor almost laughed.

"Honor, calm down," Logan quietly snapped. He looked at the stammering waiter. "I apologize for my sister's rudeness, she will adhere to the rules of the club," he told the man, seeing the sweat starting to beat at his forehead and took away Honor's cigarette, snubbing it out and handed it to the waiter. "Kindly dispose of this," he requested.

"Thank you sir," the waiter said, relieved.

"And bring me one of those fabulous peach teas," Logan said as the waiter moved to do as he was asked. He turned back to his sister. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he quietly snapped. "Making a scene like that in public. Mom and Dad would be horrified at the spectacle you just made."

Recovering from her embarrassing display of stress, Honor looked at him. "Since when did you care about whether Mom and Dad would be horrified. You used to revel in it," she retorted.

"Yeah, when I was still in school. I grew up, Honor," Logan told her.

Honor shook her head as she studied him and the way his eyes kept flickering at the DAR table with the Emily and Rory Gilmore. "I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you haven't changed much," she said. "You're still purposely avoiding going over to Mom and Dad's even though you've been home for weeks now and correct me if I'm wrong but you're eyeing Rory Gilmore like no tomorrow," she pointed out.

"I'm not eyeing Rory!" Logan hissed, making a point not to let his eyes linger over towards her and instead picked up the menu.

"She moved on, Logan," Honor told him. "She's happy."

"Yeah, probably with someone else," He grunted.

"No," Honor said with a hitch in her voice that usually said something, as she picked up her glass of wine that Logan had ordered for her. "She's single, by choice," she finished.

"Ah, but she moved on," Logan replied noncommittally.

"She made a good life for herself and is quite happy at the way things are," Honor told him.

"Without me," Logan pointed out, looking Honor in the eye.

Honor sipped her wine. "Yes, Logan, without you," she agreed in a tone that clearly said something that she wanted to, but couldn't, say. "Need any help unpacking?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Colin and Finn are coming over tonight," Logan answered her.

"Dad will be happy," Honor quipped.

"Colin and Finn are not that bad," Logan said in defense, leaning back and hold his hands up, giving her his signature 'I don't know what you're talking about' look.

"Dad always referred to them as 'the dope heads responsible for you getting into trouble'," Honor reminded him.

"According to Dad, I'm just a puppet following the strings," Logan reminded her.

Honor sipped her wine. "He doesn't think that at all," she chided him.

"I have it on good authority that he does," Logan told her seriously.

"Oh yeah? Who?" Honor challenged.

Logan didn't say anything but his gaze traveled back to where Rory was sitting.

"Leave her alone, Logan," Honor told him strictly.

"I'm not doing anything," Logan protested.

"Rory is my friend, Logan. I was there when you left. We all were. Just leave well enough alone," Honor told him with a frown.

Logan looked at her. "Or what?" he challenged.

"You'll only open up old wounds. Just forget about it," Honor told him softly.

Logan frowned. There was something that Honor wasn't telling him and that made him more determined to find out. "Fine," he ground out and looked around. "Where the hell is my iced tea?" he demanded.

-

* * *

When Logan stepped off the elevator to the main office level of HPG, the assistant, Teri, was waiting for him, a stack of folders in her hand and wearing her signature bluetooth headset. "The paperwork for your promotion to COO is still waiting for your signature, Mr. Huntzberger," she said.

Logan cringed at the title. "Have Ted send it to my office and I'll look it over," Logan told her as he made his way through the office, Teri walking at his side.

She shifted through the stack in her arms. "Also, there is a list of candidates who applied for the internship waiting for your approval," she told him.

"I haven't gotten around to that yet but it's on my to do list," Logan told her.

Teri nodded and pulled out a sheet of paper. "The Stamford Eagle Gazette sent you this memo," she told him, handing the paper copy over.

Logan took it and scanned it. "What is TWL?" he asked.

"I think you might have to call to find out," Teri told him. "I didn't think to ask," she apologized.

"It's alright, I'll call them when I reach my office," Logan told her.

"Your father has been waiting for the status reports for two hours," Teri informed him.

Logan looked at her. "Where is Sheila? I thought she was supposed to take care of that," he asked.

Teri looked at him and hesitated for a moment. "Her babysitter quit on her this morning and she couldn't come in," she informed him.

Logan stared at her. "Isn't there a daycare downstairs?" he asked.

"Not since the budget cuts last year," Teri informed him.

Logan frowned. "That doesn't make any sense," he said.

"Bill Hardy approved the move himself," Teri told him.

"Bill Hardy no longer works for HPG. Pull those budget cuts for me and I'll look over them and see what I can do about setting up a new daycare downstairs. Tell Sheila not to worry about her job. If she can't make it in, she can work at home through email and conference. If she has any problems tell her to call me and I'll take care of it personally. In no way is her pay to be affected," Logan instructed. "HPG is a family company, she shouldn't have to be penalized for our negligence to provide an adequate daycare system."

Teri nodded. "'I'll let her know," she told them as they reached his office.

"And Teri," Logan started.

"Yes, Mr. Huntzberger?" Teri asked.

"Don't ever address me as Mr. Huntzberger. We already have one of those in this office. Call me Logan. In fact, send a memo out," he instructed.

"Of course," Teri nodded, this time with a smile.

Logan nodded. "Now go see about the list I gave you," he told her before entering his office and sitting down at the desk, laying the memo down and picking up the phone, dialing out and the number for the Stamford Eagle Gazette. He drummed his fingers on the desk before someone picked up and he was surprised by the voice on the other end.

"Stamford Eagle Gazzette, Rory Gilmore speaking."

Logan froze up for a minute. Years of not hearing her voice brought up too much emotion for him.

"Hello?"

Realizing that he would have to speak sooner or later hit him and he finally spoke. "Ace?" He swore that he heard her curse. "Did you just use profanity in the workplace?" he asked trying to keep himself from laughing.

"What do you want, Logan?" he heard her hiss into the phone somewhat quietly.

Logan smiled to himself. "Hello back to you, Ace," he teased.

"I'm going to hang up the phone if..."

"If what?" Logan asked with a smile as he leaned back in his seat, falling back into the old and comfortable routine.

"Goodbye, Logan," he heard her say firmly.

"A memo was sent to my office and I had a question about the content," Logan told her seriously, sitting up.

"I didn't send you a memo."

"Then who did?" Logan asked as he looked at the memo in his hand. "All I have is a number," he told her.

"And it lead you to my desk?" he heard the skepticism in her voice which made him frown.

"I didn't know it was your desk," he told her pointedly.

"I'll tell you what. I'll ask around to see who sent the memo and have them call you."

"Whats wrong with you just answering my question now?" Logan demanded.

"Goodbye, Logan."

"Rory!" Logan snapped but was met with a dial tone. "Women," he cursed and dialed the number again.

"Stamford..."

"Do not hang up on me!" dial tone again.

Again he dialed the number.

"Stamford..."

"You can't avoid me, Ace!" dial tone again. "Goddammit!" he seethed. He buzzed his secretary. "Gail, dial the Stamford Eagle Gazette for me and when you get through patch me through," he ordered.

"The Stamford Eagle Gazette is on the phone," Gail informed him.

"Thank you," Logan said and picked up the phone. "Now you just see here, you cannot hang up on me, I'm your boss!"

"I'm sorry!"

The trembling voice on the other end did not belong to Rory but obviously to a male intern. "Who is this?" he demanded.

"Mark Taylor, I'm interning at the Stamford for the summer."

So he was correct. "Put Rory Gilmore on the line," Logan calmly instructed.

"Yes?"

"Don't you think this a little childish?" Logan ranted as he heard Rory's voice. He swore when he heard the dial tone once again.

"Personal call?"

Logan jumped slightly at the sound of his father voice and rubbed his temples. "Women," he grunted.

"Ah, completely irrational creatures," Mitchum stated.

"Multiply that for a Gilmore," Logan said as he turned away from the memo and faced his father. "Did you know Bill Hardy cut the daycare?" he asked.

"Did he?" Mitchum asked.

Logan wasn't surprised at the surprise on his father's face. Mitchum Huntzberger was never one to notice small details. "Apparently. I'm looking into it," Logan told him as the appropriate file was sent to his computer. "And here are all the budget cuts approved by Hardy," he said, pulling the file up.

"Let me take a look," Mitchum said as he pulled up a seat and went over the skewed file. "I don't remember approving that," he stated frowning.

"Why was he let go?" Logan asked, looking at his father pointedly.

"There were some things about his practices that didn't match up," Mitchum told him.

Logan glanced at the file. "By the looks of this, we have a complicated web to unravel," he said and turned back to the phone. "I know a few people who can help with this in a much speedier fashion. Let me give them a call," he told him.

"You do that, now what is this problem you were having with the Stamford paper?" Mitchum asked.

"I was trying to decipher that memo but _someone_ kept hanging up on me," Logan told him, tapping his forefinger on the offending piece of paper.

"Ah, well, that makes sense," Mitchum said and took the memo. "I'll take care of it." and with that he stood up and left. Logan didn't even blink when he did.

Picking up the phone, Logan dialed a familiar number. "Hello, Lanny? Logan Huntzberger, I have a little problem that I believe you can help me with..."


	3. Don't get technical at a time like this

_**A/N**: So sorry it took me so long to update this but you will appreciate it once you realize how many pages I'm updating. This chapter was kinda hellish for me to finish but when it came down to it I managed over 50 pages in Google Docs so I decided to break the chapter in two. The chapter titles for this chapter and the next come from the movie His Girl Friday(1940) staring Carey Grant and Rosalind Russell. If you've never heard of it, then bet that the Lorelais have._

* * *

_**Chapter Two: Oh, well, don't get technical at a time like this.**_

* * *

With the apartment in disarray with the half-assed unpacking, Logan only had a small section of the couch and the bed cleared off. There was a dinette set and sure, there was a small kitchen with enough counter space, but with the amount of stuff he had accumulated that he liked enough to keep rather that start new, he had almost every inch of the studio apartment covered with his belongings, except for this small section of the couch and the bed. He was currently sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on a stool while cartons of Chinese food surrounded him. In his hand was a carton of mu shu pork and he was digging into it with a pair of chopsticks. Occasionally he would look to his left at the sound of whining, meeting a pair of brown, almost black eyes begging for a sampling. "No," he would simply say before going back to his meal. It was a cycle set on repeat every two minutes.

The whining became accompanied by a paw on his thigh followed by a snout while the eyes looked up at him. Leaving a few bites into the carton he set it down on the floor and shook his head as his companion jumped down to devour it in one gulp. "Who needs a garbage disposal when I have you?" he muttered in bemusement. He had only been in Palo Alto for a few months before he realized that he didn't want to return to an empty home every night with no one to greet him and he was surprised to find himself wandering into a pet store where he found-or rather was chosen by-the perfect companion. It wasn't until he got home with the new puppy that he figured out the breed-Shiba Inu-from the paperwork, and did some research. It had taken him a few days to find a fitting name for the dog. He had read a book on pet names but it had been while he read To Kill a Mockingbird that the name Atticus stuck out to him.

Logan never had a pet and it wasn't for a lack of not wanting one, rather than pets in the Huntzberger household fell under the forbidden. God forbid if the immaculate house and yard was disrupted by a loyal pet. Even after moving away from his parents home, he hadn't been in a position to own a pet, until he moved to California. Atticus didn't fall under the catogory of a high maintenance and thanks to the hired trainer, he never had a real problem with the dog, so long as he made sure that Atticus got sufficient daily exercise.

Logan watched as Atticus suddenly became alert, his ears perked up, and he turned his head toward the door. After a moment of watching, he jumped up and ran to the door, starting to bark. Amused, Logan lazily got up and walked to the door as there was some knocking. He rubbed Atticus' head and gestured for him to get back before opening the door to his friends. "You're doorman is on speed, you know," Finn announced as he walked in.

"Huh, nice to know," Logan retorted as he rolled his eyes.

"Wild Turkey anyone?" Colin announced as he walked in, holding up a bottle of bourbon.

"The whole way here, they've been planning a grand welcome home party," Steph informed him as she too walked in.

"Really?" Logan asked with a sly smile.

"Now that, you're back in Hartford permanently, Mate, we need to get the entire gang back together for a big blowout bash," Finn informed him as he slung an arm around his shoulders.

"I keep trying to explain that it may not be a great idea," Steph said rolling her eyes.

Logan looked at her confused. "Why not?" he asked.

"Because we can't invite the whole gang and not invite a certain someone, it would be rude, but its not like she would attend so there wouldn't be that big of an issue," Colin told his wife of three years.

Logan caught up quickly. "Ah," he said as he pulled Atticus back.

"Should we be bringing this up?" Finn asked.

"He's going to have to hear it anyway, Finn, avoiding her would be socially impossible," Colin pointed out.

"I take it that you guys still talk to Rory," Logan stated. He caught the looks that passed between his friends. "I don't care if you do," he told them.

"We weren't sure if you wanted to hear about any of it," Steph explained.

"She's involved with practically everything. The whole of Hartford society is in the palm of her hand, there aren't too many who aren't in contact with her. Everyone from Yale talks to her and yeah, we hang out occasionally," Colin told him.

"I saw her having lunch with the DAR ladies at the club earlier," Logan told them, "So I figured this all out already."

"You don't seem upset," Colin said carefully.

"Why should I be upset? She is living here in Hartford. I knew this when I accepted the job here. I understood that dealing with Rory would be a part of coming home."

"When even mentioning Reporter Girl's name got us hung up on for weeks even three months ago?" Finn asked. "Are you on some sort of drugs or something?"

"We won't find any tranquilizers stashed away in here will we?" Colin asked.

Finn turned to Colin. "I concur! Our boy here will need a pharmacy full of tranquilizers to deal with both the Dark Lord and the Emperor on top of seeing our lovely Reporter Girl," he said, the reference to Rory falling from his lips in reverence.

Colin turned back to Logan. "If you need legal counseling should Gil Kerlikowske come after you, I'll be happy to serve you, buddy," he said.

Finn interrupted Colin. "Didn't a new guy get put in charge a couple of months ago?" he asked.

Colin thought about it for a moment. "Huh, maybe. I have to go check later," he said.

"I'll deal with Rory as needed," Logan said. "And no, I'm not on any drugs," he made sure to point out, half amused, half annoyed at his friends' antics. "And don't you think we're a little old for the fun and games?" he half-heartedly mused.

Finn gave him a startled look as he placed a hand over his heart and stepped back as if struck. "Blasphemy!" he cried.

"It's okay, Finn, Logan didn't mean it," Colin said sympathetically to the wounded Finn. He turned to Logan. "Don't scare Finn, Logan!" he chastised.

"Wow, fatherhood sure has changed you, Colin," Logan deadpanned.

"I am just the same as I always have been," Colin said flatly. It was true, Logan had heard Colin say that he would never let any child change him in any way time and time again. But when Damon was born, Logan had seen the unknown side of Colin come out more and more. Finn was shocked and slightly scared at seeing Colin tend to his son, but Logan had seen this before when his ex-step-mother, Maria, gave birth to Colin's half-sister, Gillian, when he and Colin were twelve.

"Why don't we start getting the bedroom stuff unpacked so you can be comfortable tonight and we can get going on the living room tomorrow?" Stephanie asked, trying desperately to change the subject. She opened up a box marked bedroom and started pulling a few things out. As she pulled out an old cigar box, it almost slipped out of her hand with something falling out. Bending down to pick it up, her jelewry concious mind noted the ring box. She briefly opened the box before closing it with a snap upon the brief glance at the diamond ring inside, looking at Logan.

Seeing Colin and Finn freeze and stare at Steph, Logan turned to her and saw what she was holding and the cautious expressions on his friends faces. "I forgot that was in there," he stated. "I haven't gotten around to returning it to the jeweler's yet," he explained, downplaying the situation.

"Oh..." Steph breathed quietly.

Logan busied himself with unpacking a box marked bathroom and pulled out a pile of towels. "I don't think I will have time anytime soon so if you wanted to take it back for me, you would be doing me a huge favor," he said offhandedly as he took the towels into the bathroom.

"Uh..sure, I can do that," Steph said before tucking the ring box into her purse, exchanging a look with Colin.

Finn leaned in closer to Colin. "Three dimes says that Logan starts chasing after Reporter Girl in the next two weeks," he bet quietly.

Colin looked at him contemplatively. "That's way too easy, even for you," he stated. "What, you lost your confidence?"

Finn frowned as he gave his other friend a quick glance. "Three dimes that says he chases Reporter Girl around and they start going at it like jack rabbits," he amended his bet.

"What's you're time limit?" Colin hissed.

Finn seemed to consider this. "That's a tough one. Even our mate over there is going to find himself exhausting all options and failing for a while," he said thoughtfully. "I give it five months," he decided.

"Love your confidence in Logan, Finn," Colin drawled.

"Hey, I know for a fact that Reporter Girl is extremely hard to crack now," Finn defended himself.

Colin nodded. "I'll raise your bet and say that they are back together at the end of five months," he bet.

"You're on!" Finn said, shaking hands with Colin.

"Not another bet," Steph sighed.

Logan glanced over at Colin and Finn and shook his head. "They making a bet on whether or not I'll do something they have no doubt I'd do," he told her knowingly.

Steph looked at him. "You know it is also about Rory, right?" she asked.

"Of course it is," Logan stated as if it were the only logical option as he stuffed some clothes into drawers.

"Doesn't that bother you?" Steph asked.

"Nah, we do this kind of thing all the time. You have your happy marriage because of a bet," Logan informed her.

Steph gave him an incredulous look before glancing at her husband. "Colin, did you know we only got married because of a bet?" she asked.

"I've known that since the morning after when I caught Finn giving Logan a large sum of money and Logan had his smug look on his face. I didn't want to ask about the particulars," Colin told her.

"I remember winning the jackpot and having to give it to Logan because he cheated," Finn pointed out.

"How did I cheat?" Logan demanded.

"You were practically pushing more drinks into their hands and pushing their way into the nearest Vegas chapel, Mate!" Finn stated pointedly.

"Hate to break it you, Finn, but they were heading towards marriage since fifth grade, all I did was give a gentle shove," Logan replied, amused, and gestured for emphasis.

"Hey!"

"Gentle shove my ass!" Finn snapped.

"The fact that you're sore over losing a three-year-old bet is astounding," Logan deadpanned, the two ignoring the cries of protest from the two other occupants.

"You cheated!" Finn yelled.

"Did not," Logan countered dismissively.

"Did so," Finn said, sitting on the bed.

"How exactly can one cheat at a game with no rules?" Logan asked him without looking up.

"There are unwritten rules, like no interfering," Finn pouted.

"Then I unwrittenly break them, don't I, and since it's all unwritten, it doesn't matter anyway."

"If you are going to be here, then you need to help, Finn," Steph interrupted their bickering.

Finn took the box she shoved in his direction and sat it on the bathroom counter, pulling out the objects one by one. "So are you going to see her?"

"I'm scheduled to do a week of 'hi, I'm the new person in charge of operations' at her newspaper next week. I thought I would get it out of the way."

"And you've been touring all the other newspapers instead of coming home to see us why?"

"Because, being in Hartford puts me in close proximity to my father, and quite frankly, I hate the man."

"Ah, dragging your feet in coming before the Dark Lord," Finn said, "That actually makes a modicum of sense."

"Where exactly did you learn a word like that?"

"I graduated college, same as you," Finn defended himself.

"Graduated does not mean that you learned anything, and as I recall, you were sober all of three times in the four years you were there."

"Words pour in, words pour out," Finn said with a laugh. "Sometimes they stick. Sometimes you talk to people and they say words you don't know so you look them up."

"Do you even know what a dictionary looks like?"

Finn scratched his head. "I am sure I saw one last week."

"Yeah, at Rory's house," Colin countered.

Finn snapped his fingers. "That was it. I was over at Reporter Girl's house for, well, you know," he said, perking his eyebrows up to Colin, completely forgetting that Logan was in the room. "She made a nice dinner, we talked, there were flowers, and singing and it was the most wonderful night."

"I'm sure," Colin said dryly.

"And she said the word, and it made my heart flutter so."

"She made you look it up didn't she?" Colin asked, ruining his moment.

"Well, yes," Finn agreed, "But only AFTER, you know, my pride is such a sorrowful little bird."

"Enough, you two," Logan said, the weight of many things in his voice. "I want to go to sleep so I can get started again in the morning."

"We still have one more box to unpack in here," Steph said, then saw the expression of tightly controlled emotion on his face. "But we can get an early start in the morning." She fairly literally shoved Colin and Finn both toward the door, her severe expression for Finn not entirely lost on him.

Logan followed them to the door, shutting it behind them and leaning against it. Atticus, who had been laying on the one cleared portion of the one sofa that had any remaining sitting space, hopped down and padded over to Logan. Logan slid down the door until he was sitting, and Atticus bumped his hand with his head. When Logan would not rouse sufficiently, he did it again, and whimpered. "Alright, alright," he said, and started scratching the dog between his ears. "I know, you miss California, and you aren't really sure about Connecticut. We'll make it, though, I promise. There's not much different, still the sea nearby, still the parks to run in." Logan sighed, and Atticus spun in a circle, and moved toward the bedroom, looking back at Logan. "Yes, bed. That's probably not a bad idea."

* * *

Rory kissed her children's cheeks as she said goodbye to them outside their school. Her daughter's cheeks were flushed in excitement, her eyes gleaming and her little body itched for her chance to take off so she could find her new friends and have fun. Nora took after her father in most regards, her outgoing nature and hyperactivity all came from Logan. Her son, however, was different. Nickolas took the place of the quiet and more reserved of the two and really, you had to see them together to notice the difference. Nickolas preferred to be inside reading his books while Nora loved to play outside and be really active. In the first three weeks of school they each enjoyed different areas. Nora loved it and ran off at the first chance when Rory dropped them off; Nickolas did everything in his power not to. Rory had to fight with her son to get him to stop clinging to her and that he had to go to school, but Nickolas didn't want her to leave him in an environment he had not yet adjusted to.

"Come on, Nickol, come out of the car," Rory coaxed from outside the open car door.

"No!" Nickolas cried crossing his arms.

"Not even for a Mars bar?" Rory asked.

Nickolas shook his head furiously.

Sighing, Rory tried to think of a way to get him out of the car. "You don't want me to call Mrs. Kim and ask her if she would mind babysitting do you?" she asked.

Nickolas gave her a look of sheer terror. "No, Please don't call Mrs. Kim!" he cried.

"I won't if you come out of the car?" Rory told him. For a minute she thought that she had found his weakness before he shook his head again and huddled deeper into the back seat. "Nickolas Owen Gilmore, if you don't come out of that car right now, you will have to sit in time out for twenty minutes when you get home," she told him sternly.

Reluctantly, her son crawled out of the car with his backpack in his hand and hung his head. When he hugged Rory's leg, she melted. 

Rubbing his back she bent to look him in the eye. "I'll walk you to your classroom, deal?" she offered. He nodded and she kissed his forehead before standing and taking his head, walking him to his classroom as promised. When they reached their destination he clung to her and she let him before gently coaxing him to go sit at the table Nora was already at, talking with another girl her age and another little boy offering her a glob of play dough. Smiling sadly, she was once more reminded of how much her daughter took after Logan before she turned and walked back to her car.

* * *

His father wanted him to be well acquainted with the staff of all Huntzberger papers so he had Logan taking a week with each paper before his official duties as COO could take full effect. Logan didn't complain much about it as he would have done five or so years ago. Time away from Mitchum was like Christmas and Hanukkah rolled into one. Being on another end of the country away from Mitchum for six years was like heaven. Logan was sure that time away from each other and time together held little difference to his father at all and he had grown o accept it as the way of things. Logan's relationship with Mitchum in no way different than that of Mitchum's with Elias; it was a vicious cycle that Logan vowed to break and if that implied that he just didn't have any sons then all the better. If he couldn't follow the plan and not take over HPG then why not settle for just failing to produce the next Huntzberger heir? Logan knew pretty well that plans to strong-arm him to settle down had already been put in motion as it stood.

Pulling into the parking lot to the Stamford Eagle Gazette, Logan took the best parking space and spotted the nice little coffee shop across the street. Locking his Porsche, he crossed the parking lot to head in to get himself a cup of coffee and ensure that what he'd ordered when scouting the area the Friday before was ready to go. "I'm here for my order," he said to the perky little brunette behind the counter.

"Name?"

"Huntzberger," he said and she looked it up on the computer, and got one of the other employees to go get a small pushcart for him. He checked that there was an appropriate amount of everything there, and then turned back to her. "I also want a large coffee and a large caramel macchiato with an extra shot and whip cream."

She giggled but rang his coffee up and he paid her for everything and then followed the young man pushing the cart over to the newspaper office. It was not far, or they probably would have had some sort of delivery vehicle to send everything in. This was one of many strategies that he'd learned fairly early in the business. If you treated people well, they would treat you well. If you treated employees as though they were valuable, they valued the company.

There were only a few people milling about; the full staff didn't normally come in until about 9 o'clock and the clock only read 8:30. Logan chose to set up the morning's offerings in the large conference room to the left and rear of the main newsroom.

* * *

Rory pulled into the Gazette's parking lot and headed towards her parking spot only to find it already occupied by a silver, two-seater Porsche. "Great," she muttered in distaste. "Just my luck to have to deal with some rich, self-important jerk who obvious thought that a reserved spot is up for grabs just because they got the golden spoon treatment," she muttered darkly as she pulled into a lesser spot. She paused by the Porsche and frowned. "You think you're so good huh? Well you haven't met Rory Gilmore," she muttered as she walked into the building with her shoulders set. The frantic atmosphere of the building had Rory frowning in confusion. Just who was it that took her parking spot and set her staff on edge?

She almost spilled her coffee cup when a hand pulled into the office of her friend and coworker, Julie Simms. "Julie, what the hell, watch the coffee!" she snapped.

Julie pressed her back against the door. "We have a problem," she hissed.

"I'll say we do, I almost lost half of my coffee," Rory retorted.

"Logan Huntzberger is here," Julie informed her in a conspiratorial tone.

Rory instantly became alert, her head popping up and her eyes widened. "What...why?" she stammered.

"I don't know, but word around says he's been spending a lot of time with the other papers too and he never announces when he's going to show up either, he just does and no one knows why yet," Julie told her.

Rory now knew who had stolen her parking spot and that only added fuel to the fire against Logan. "Where is he now?" she asked.

"In the conference room, serving coffee and pastries, in a get-to-know-you-I-appreciate-your-sycophancy kind of way," Julie informed her. "Drop dead gorgeous and charming, a lethal combination. I don't trust him."

"Don't worry, Julie, I'll handle him," Rory told her.

"Tail between the legs, Gilmore, make him run from your bite!" Julie encouraged with the appropriate hand gestures.

Oh, she would no doubt make Logan beg, that was a given. She was the only one who could, that she knew. Not to mention, she knew all his secrets and could use them to her advantage if she wanted to. "I'll be subtle," she told Julie as she left Julie's office and walked towards her own, carrying herself with pride and confidence, not even looking into the conference room on her way. Once she reached her office, she set down her coffee and the stack of folders she had carried into the building on her desk. She rounded the desk but before she could take a seat she heard a knock against the door frame. Looking up she saw Logan standing in the doorway. "Coffee?" he offered, holding out a cup from the coffee house across the street.

"No thanks," she said, as she picked up the cup she had carried in.

"For when that one is gone then," Logan said as he set the cup in his hands down. "A large caramel macchiato with an extra shot and whip cream. Just the way you like it."

"What are you doing here, Logan?" she asked.

"Getting to know the staff, making sure things are running smoothly..."

"Do you have any reason to think otherwise?" Rory asked.

"None at all," Logan told her. "But I do have a few things to discuss and the advantage of driving out here is that you can't hang up on me," he told her as he took a seat.

"Wow, so that is the root of this whole visit," Rory said as she took a seat. "I'm very busy, I don't need you bugging me," she told him as she turned the computer on and typed in the password.

"I can see," Logan replied but made no move to leave. "Love the details around this office, Ace, very you."

"Why are you even here?" Rory demanded. "Aren't you supposed to be in California?" she demanded.

"I relocated for the job," Logan told her.

"Back to being Mitchum's employee I see. That didn't last long," she quipped.

Logan frowned. "That was low," he told her.

"It's the truth," she told him.

"It sounded like a lot more," Logan pointed out, his eyes settling on a picture frame by the computer monitor and reaching for it only for Rory to snatch it away and relocate it.

"Interpret it as you will," Rory told him nonchalantly.

Logan leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "Hey, if either of us has a right to be bitter that's me. I didn't publicly reject you for all of New England to see or throw three years in your face like nothing," he told her.

Rory leveled him with a look. "I embarrassed you?" she retorted incredulously. "If that wasn't the most self-absorbed pile of crap I have ever heard.." she seethed.

"It's the truth and I'm positive Richard and Emily would agree!" Logan argued.

"You don't know that!"

"Not personally, but I know the general opinion of it would be so," Logan amended.

"You think too much of yourself, Huntzberger," Rory told him. "And I want my parking spot back!" she jabbed in.

"Your what?" Logan asked.

"That is your Porsche parked outside is it not?" Rory demanded.

"Yeah..."

"It's in my spot," she told him.

"I didn't know there were designated spots," Logan told her flatly.

"There are, to some. But that particular spot has been mine for the last two years and I want it back," Rory told him.

"If it's bothering so much that I parked in your spot then I'll go move my car as soon as possible," Logan said dryly.

"It is bothering me, so why don't you go move it right now," she told him.

"Or we can talk about what really is bothering you and that's my being here," Logan countered.

"You being here, in my office, now, while I'm trying to work is bothering me, yes," Rory told him.

"Considering how my family owns this paper means that I'll be in this office often enough to check in on things so my presence shouldn't be distracting...unless it is something else that's bothering you," Logan reasoned. "Whatever the case, the fact is that you're going to have to deal with seeing me around so you need to get over whatever it is that has you in a mood."

"Maybe I should take a job at a paper not owned by your family," Rory suggested.

"Doesn't make any difference to me," Logan brushed off.

"Should I send you my letter of resignation in person or in a memo, then?" she asked.

"You're really willing to quit your job just so you can avoid me?" Logan challenged doubtfully.

"Watch me," Rory told him stubbornly.

Shaking his head, Logan stood up. "You're really something, Ace," he stated exasperatedly. "I'm calling a staff meeting at noon," he informed her before leaving the office.

Rory barely glanced at his retreating back, taking a sip from her coffee before turning to her to do list of the day.

* * *

Rory walked into the conference room, seeing one wall taken up by the staff at the cafe across the street and a buffet of food. The whole staff was gathered around, talking, some had taken some of the free food and drinks. She walked over to where Julie stood when she noticed the frown line in her friend's forehead, an indication that she was working on a problem in her head that she didn't fully understand yet.

"Arrogant," Julie scoffed. "He calls a mandatory staff meeting and is late for it."

"Mitchum is worse," Rory told her quietly.

Julie glanced at her. "You know this from that internship?"

"Among other things," Rory answered.

Before another word was spoken, Logan walked in, holding a stack of portfolio folders and handed a few to a couple people with instructions to pass them around. As the staff settled in, he lounged against the back wall, until the noise died down to a tolerable level. "I'm sure you are all wondering about the details of my being here, and I know that everyone's been talking about this visit, and as long as you are getting your work done, a little gossip has never really hurt anyone that I know about. I will try to dispel the rumors as best I can and provide you with facts. This is a good newspaper, and you have one of the most excellent editors that all of Huntzberger publishing employs. I know because she used to be my editor, back when I did write for a newspaper."

The staff cheered, and Rory looked embarrassed, and Logan smiled at her. The look she gave back was not a pleasant one, but only a few people could see it, as she was at the head of the table. "That's been years, though, and I've been working with a new platform that HPG just acquired the rights to, and, since I've been working with this new platform, I am the one who gets to introduce it to everyone. Once this phase of integrating Media Analytics into the rest of HPG, then I will be taking over Bill Hardy's position as COO, and what that means is if there's something going on that's bigger than just this paper, I'll probably be the one in charge of it," he shuffled through a stack of papers in front of him.

"I'll try to stay out of the paper's business as much as possible. I know that you guys do a good job, and you probably know more than I do what your jobs are, and how to do them. I'll be doing some training on how to use the new system, but it's actually very intuitive on both ends, very user-friendly for both the readers and the writers. So, does anyone have any questions for me?"

"What are your expectations for the Gazette?" asked Sam Puckett.

"Well, I think for the most part, the Gazette will continue on as you have been, though I do expect that you will be striving for improvements. I could get more into specifics if we had them, but I haven't had a chance to sit down with Ms. Gilmore and review them, though I expect to do that this week."

"Are you going to be having direct contact with us, or mostly just with Ms. Gilmore?" this from Lucille Velazquez.

Logan threw a look at Rory, meeting her eyes and held her gaze for longer than he should before nodding. "For the most part I will hold direct contact with your editor but occasionally I'll stop by for the usual check up and I'll speak to all of you directly. I understand that the previous COO didn't make it out much and I plan to correct that," he answered and looked amongst the staff, ending back to Rory.

There was a murmur amongst staff about Bill Hardy and his off-putting personality. More questions were fielded towards him and he answered as effectively as possibly only going into more detail when Rory posed a rather specific question and pressed at it for more details than were included in the folder, leaving Logan once again marveling at her quick mind. A blond woman decked out in her finest and most flashy office attire had drummed her pen the entire meeting before setting it down on the conference table and grabbed his attention with a single, unrelated question. "Are you single?"

Logan stared at her. "Excuse me?" he rather demanded. His eyes flickered over to Rory who merely raised an eyebrow and gave him a look that clearly said he was on his own.

"Everyone is wondering if you are off the market. The other gossip columns are speculating since you left the public eye," she stated.

"I don't see how my personal life is relevant here," Logan told her in a tone that he meant to close the subject.

"You're not interested in responding to the women linked to your name?" the woman asked persistently.

"I pay gossips little mind. Moving on," he started. He caught Rory's frown and Julie's enmity, bordering on hatred as he looked back because the woman cleared her throat.

She had the full attention of the table, but in this case it wasn't a good thing. "You would like to respond?"

"What women?" came Logan's only answer.

"Well, a reporter never reveals her sources," she started.

"If you want me to comment on it you will. Otherwise, I believe that you are just digging for gossip, and I will not provide you with any fodder. Moving on," he said, and this time Kate Douglas wisely let it slide by.

The rest of the meeting was more mundane, but every few questions, Logan's gaze would slide to Rory, and she said little to him, asking questions that she wanted answered, pushing and prodding to get an understanding of how this would ultimately affect the paper, but he was reassured that something still lurked there, that he still could easily communicate with her, and didn't need words to say volumes. A look was still all it took for a thousand messages to fly across the room. After he let everyone go, Rory and Julie were content to stay behind.

After only Rory, Julie and Logan remained in the room, Julie and Rory stood and started to discuss the meeting between themselves as Logan finished collecting the different things he had brought in. He couldn't hear exactly was was being said but he caught the small looks thrown in his direction every so often. When the two women were about to walk out of the room, he spoke up. "Rory? A word?" he asked.

Rory gave Julie an assured look. "I'll be just a moment," she told her friend who inclined her head a little before nodding and leaving.

Once alone Logan walked up to Rory. "I was thinking that we could review corporate expectations for the paper over dinner. Are you free tonight?" he proposed.

"No, I'm not," Rory told him.

"Okay, how about another night?" he offered.

"I'm busy," she told him.

"Wow, that took less than two seconds, you don't even have to consider it," Logan said, taken aback. He was ill-prepared to have been shot down so quickly. Of course again, this was Rory after all. It had taken him a lot of convincing, twice, for her to take him back and she had always been resistant in doing so. But he had been so used to not being shot down that he hadn't prepared for this time.

"I'm not having dinner with you, tonight, this week, nor any time in the foreseeable future, Logan," Rory told him.

"You're absolutely certain about that?"

Rory gave him a look. "Yes, I am," she told him shortly.

"Ace, come on," he started. "What did I ever do to you to deserve this animosity?"

"Got a week?" Rory threw back his words from their first fight years ago. She didn't wait for a response. "If you want to talk about the paper, I'm free but it will be here in this office. I'm not going to mix business with personal," she told him before she turned to leave.

"Don't you think its a little late to mix business and personal?" Logan called after her. "Women," he scoffed.

* * *

On the third day that Logan hovered over the gazette, Rory busied herself with the layout when Julie walked in and closed the door behind her, leaning against the door. "Oh my God, I just figured everything out!" she said.

Rory looked at her in confusion. "Figured what out?" she asked.

Julie went from pressed against the door to sitting across from Rory in a feline approach. "You used to date Logan Huntzberger, didn't you?" she asked.

"Where'd you hear that?" Rory asked.

"From the bedroom eyes he keeps sending your way coupled with the amusing way the two of you argue and challenge each other. Time to tell all," Julie answered, resting her elbows on Rory's desk and leaning into her propped up hands, staring at her intently.

"What is there to tell? We dated in collage, he asked me to marry him, I turned him down, he left," Rory told her mater-of-factly.

"How long ago did this happen?" Julie asked.

"Six years ago," Rory told her as she continued to work.

"Six years ago, when?"

"My college graduation," she said with a sigh, shuffling through some papers.

Julie's eye widened as she digested this. "No. Logan Huntzberger isn't little Nicky and Nora's father is he?" she asked quietly. "He's not the one who left you and them?"

Rory sighed.

"Oh, I'll kill him. I don't care if he's my boss, I'm going to kick his ass!" Julie seethed.

Rory had no doubt that Julie would kick Logan's ass. Julie could be as intimidating as Paris but without the abrasive personality. Julie came from the Bronx and had worked her way through a local collage before starting out at the Gazette the same time Rory did. Rory never met anyone so resentful of the wealthy until Julie and in the five years that Rory had known her, Julie had mellowed out significantly. "You're not going to do or say anything," Rory told her firmly.

Understanding dawned on Julie's face. "He doesn't even know does he?" she asked.

"Nope," Rory answered as she marked an article.

"Are you going to tell him?" Julie asked.

"I tried to tell him, for five months," Rory pointed out.

"I didn't trust him for a reason," Julie stated as she crossed her arms.

"Julie, you don't trust any good-looking rich man," Rory reminded her placidly.

"I have a perfect reason not to," Julie pointed out. "So, Meeko's for lunch?" she asked.

"Wouldn't miss it," Rory answered.

"Are you sure you don't want me to kick his ass?" Julie asked sketpically.

"Yes, I'm sure. I appreciate the concern, but I don't want to see you losing your job or worse, being at the mercy of the Huntzbergers or their lawyers, and those lawyers are about the best on the entire East Coast. Trust me when I say it's not worth having these people after you."

"The lawyers or the Huntzbergers?" Julie asked.

"Both actually," Rory answered. "Mitchum and Elias are pure evil, I'm sure of it," she stated with a serious expression.

"I'll take your word for it since you must have had the displeasure of meeting them, what with having dated their heir and all," Julie replied. "I'll make sure that doesn't get around, you don't need Kate Douglas spreading her take on the whole thing."

Rory shuddered at the thought. "Please do," she said.

* * *

It hadn't taken much journalistic talent to find out that Rory had lunch at a cafe called Meeko's with junior editor Julie Simms on Wednesdays and Logan didn't know what drove his actions the past three days but he enjoyed every opportunity to rile Rory up and that included parking in her space. He would even change cars each day to see if she knew it was him, which she did. She threatened to key his car every morning when she came in. She still reacted when goaded and if anything, her anger had grown more intense than he remembered.

When he walked in, he spotted Rory sitting at a table with the other woman, talking and enjoying herself. Strange how he felt like he was back in collage just by being around her again for the past three days. He had forgotten how amusing it was to see her nettled and he recalled that memorable second meeting that had firmly set her onto his radar. He hadn't been prepared to meet someone like Rory so fast and the day he encountered her outside her dorm had knocked his world off kilter. Eight years later and he felt that off kilter kick all over again. Not for the first time, he held regrets over ending their relationship.

After ordering a cup of coffee, Logan made his way over to her table. "Ladies," he greeted as he approached. He saw their frowns at his intrusion. "This is a nice surprise. When someone suggested this place I thought I would be eating by myself," he said.

"We didn't invite you to join us," Julie pointed out.

Rory rolled her eyes. "Don't bother, he doesn't understand the word uninvited," she said to her friend.

"I'm hurt, Ace," Logan stated as he pulled up a chair. "Do you treat all your exes with such animosity or am I just special?" he asked.

Julie leaned over to Rory with an incredulous expression. "Is he for real?" she asked.

"No, just you," Rory told him. She turned to Julie then, "Yes, this is something close to the real Logan."

"Joy," Julie muttered dryly.

Logan looked at Julie thoughtfully. "You don't like me," he observed. "You don't know me, but you don't like me."

"I don't need to know you," Julie told him.

Logan gave her a look. "You don't?" he said doubtfully. "I'm sorry that you feel that way. I would really like the chance to get to know you."

"Very smooth but I don't buy it. You're just like every other rich guy in this country," Julie told him dismissively.

"And how is that?" Logan asked.

"You think you own the world, and you expect everyone to just fall at your feet in worship. I don't think you own the world, and I'm not going to treat you like you do."

"Fair enough," Logan said. "I'm not my father, and I don't actually own anything as of yet, beyond my personal belongings. I'm here to get to know the people at this paper because he thinks that will help me to understand what's going on better."

Julie laughed. "You're here on orders from on high?"

Logan grimaced. "Yes. I think that the only reason that Huntzberger Publishing bought Nazdeck Innovations was to bring me back into the fold. I've never been very good about following my father's laid out plans, as I'm sure Rory can attest."

Rory rolled her eyes. "There's rebellion and there's stupidity, Logan, I have seen you go through your share of both trying to get away from your father, but it seems not to have worked."

"Yes, well, I was cut off from the family funds for the most part about seven years ago, and I've been in Palo Alto for the last six, and Nazdeck, but I couldn't just leave them to their fate with my father. If I had quit, he would have dumped them off with no thought as to how that would affect the company. I couldn't sit by and watch that happen to a company I had worked with for six years."

"So for the good of the company, you come humbly back to your family's warm embrace, and the family fortunes?" Julie asked with a laugh.

"What warm embrace? I haven't spoken to my father in four years, my grandfather is only concerned about me continuing the family line, my mother has stage four lung cancer and my sister is more worried about how she looks to the rest of society than in much of anything else right now. I know that's just Honor's way of dealing with Mom being sick, but my presence has hardly caused a ripple any more than my absence did."

"Do you expect me to feel sorry for you or something?"

"No, I'm just trying to paint a realistic picture of my life for you. And if you're wondering about your implication that the family fortune is mine to behold now, it's not. I got a small raise when I came home that barely covers the difference in the cost of living from Palo Alto to New York."

"What about your Porsche? Your fancy suits?"

"I've had this suit for almost ten years, and yes, I drive a Porsche, but it's about the only thing I'm spending much of any money on right now. I have an apartment I barely see because in addition to going around to each of the newspapers and spending the whole workday with them, I have about six hours of paperwork waiting on me back at the office every night. I have a lot to learn and a lot to correct in my new position, and I want to get everything settled as quickly as possible."

"Wait, HPG owns 14 papers on the East Coast alone, are you telling me you are going to be doing 14 hour days for 14 weeks?"

Logan shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. Not that I expected any less. About the only benefit is that my family can't hound me because I'm working."

Julie looked at him with a mix of awe and surprise. "You really expect me to believe that, don't you?"

"Ask Ace, I may shirk work when I feel like I can get away with it, but I don't lie."

"Ace?" Julie questioned, raising an eyebrow at Rory.

"I never received an explanation on that myself," Rory stated to her contemplatively.

Logan shrugged. "It's about respect. Rory's always gone above and beyond in the pursuit of the craft. Even working for the Yale Daily News, she would not stop going after a story until she knew everything there was to know on the subject. She is tenacious, like no one else I've ever met."

The sound of a ringing phone interrupted the tête-à-tête and Rory dug around her purse and answered it. "Rory Gilmore." Her face scrunched up in concern, and she started going pale. "Oh my god! Is she alright?" she asked in alarm.

Julie couldn't help but notice how Logan became alert and concerned.

"Is it Lorelai?" he asked.

"I'll be right there," Rory said into the phone before hanging up. "I have to go to the hospital," she said as she grabbed her purse, dropping her phone into it and stood up. "My keys. I left my keys on my desk and my car is in the garage," she muttered.

"I'll drive you," Logan offered standing up.

"No, I'll drive myself," Rory told him flatly.

"Rory, you're clearly upset and unfit to drive because of it," Logan reasoned. "I'm not going to let you drive while you're this upset," he told her.

"My car isn't far, and I brought my keys with me," Julie said as she stood up. "Come on," she said.

"Fine," Rory said allowing Julie to escort her out of the cafe, leaving Logan behind to pay the bill.

* * *

Julie got Rory into the car, then jumped into the driver's seat. "So, what's going on?" she asked as she pulled into traffic. "And what hospital?"

"Hartford Presbyterian Hospital. Nora fell out of a tree, and they are pretty sure she broke her arm, but not sure if there's more wrong."

"Are you sure you don't want Logan there?"

Rory nodded slowly. "He shouldn't find out this way. She shouldn't find out this way. I'm not sure I ever want him to know."

"Isn't that going a little far?"

"It's his fault, she's like him."

"That's slightly extreme for a reason not to tell him, but that's your choice."

"Do you think I should tell him?"

Julie sighed. "I don't know. Everything I know about rich boys says it won't make a difference, that he won't care, especially about the girl, they might be moved to take some care for their little robot heirs, but Logan doesn't seem to fit in that mold. And it's pretty cold to leave him with no clue that his daughter is in the hospital with possibly life-threatening injuries. How far did Nora fall?"

"I don't know, they didn't say. The school nurse seemed pretty worried about it, so probably pretty far."

"Are they calling your mom or your grandma?"

"Both, probably, and I should call them, too."

"Okay, that sounds like a good idea," Julie agreed.

Rory pulled out her phone and dialed her mother's number. "Hey, Mom," she said, then took a shaky breath. "Yeah, Nora...Juile's driving me...no...maybe, but I can't deal with him right now...alright, I will see you there...Yes, Grandma's on her emergency contact list...someone who's in Hartford full-time needs to be...Just focus on Nora, and Grandma will too, and it will be fine...I love you, too, Mom, I'll see you when I get there."

She sat back in the seat, closing her eyes for a few minutes before dialing her grandmother's number. "Hi, Grandma...Yes, I'll be at the hospital as soon as I can...Mom's coming, too...I didn't think about calling Dad, but if you think it's necessary, go ahead, but Gigi probably won't be really good in a hospital...I don't know what his situation is in regards to a Nanny, he's got one I think...Alright, I will see you there...Bye, Grandma, love you," she said, hanging up the phone.

"Do you think Mom and Grandma both is overkill?"

"Mom can be calm, but it will take her a little while to get there, and Grandma's not too shabby at getting things done, and she's right there in town. If they need actual papers signed, then there's someone there who can do it."

"And the faster they can get treatment started, the better it is," Julie concluded. "Was your Mom asking about Logan?"

Rory sighed. "Yes. She thinks that I should have confronted him about the whole thing the minute I heard he was back in town. But I'm not her, and thats just not me."

"So, you're avoiding telling him, why? Are you protecting them, or yourself?"

"Why does it have to be either/or? We are better without him in our lives. Logan doesn't do well when the chips are down. And he's not great with the whole family thing."

"Why is that?"

"He's bad at being the little robot heir," she said with a little laugh.

"And Nickolas would get passive-aggressive about it."

Rory looked at her confused. "Where do you get that from?"

"If there's anyone that Nora's like, it's her dad, right? Outgoing, thrill-seeking, and she's always been friends with everyone. Well, Nickolas is like that with you, and you are being really passive-aggressive about this with Logan. So, based on his dislike of confrontation, and it's even greater than yours, because you will do it if you can see the necessity of it, he will not confront the situation unless he's absolutely forced to."

"So, do you think I'm right in keeping them from him?"

"That's not my question to answer. I think Nora would find him fascinating and she could hold her own against anyone, and I think Nickolas would be fine if it were just Logan, but what you've told me about his family, and even the way he talks about his family, I don't know that they wouldn't eat him alive."

"But I can't have it both ways. I can't tell him about Nora without including Nickol in it."

"Like I said, not my question to answer. But he will have every right to be pissed about this if you tell him later."

"Then he needed to have picked up the phone when I called trying to tell him before they were born."

"Did he know that's what you wanted to tell him?"

"No," Rory said, sitting back again, closing her eyes.

"So how could he know that it was super, incredibly important that you talk to him?"

"A hundred e-mails and at least as many voice mails that said that it was super, incredibly important that I talk to him. I'm sure that he read at least one of them, and he might have even listened to a voice mail or two."

"What if he didn't?"

"Why wouldn't he?"

"What if he was just so whatever that he dumped your e-mail and voice mail into the virtual trash can without reading it or listening to it?"

"So whatever? What does that mean?"

"Well, I don't know him, so I don't know what he was, but you know, hurt or over you or whatever."

"He didn't ever answer me, but I don't know that it means that he didn't read or listen to any of them."

Julie shrugged, and stopped asking questions, turning the radio on for the rest of the hour and a half drive to Hartford.

* * *

"Mommy!" Nora cried as Rory entered the room, crossing the room towards her and kissed her forehead.

"Hey, baby. You, okay?"

Nora nodded. "I have a mummy arm," she said in excitement, indicating her purple cast. "Hi, Aunt Julie," she said to the second figure who entered. Since neither she nor Logan had many siblings, just Gigi and Honor, and Nick and Nora had wanted uncles for some reason or another, she had declared that they could choose their aunts and uncles. Honor had been thusly chosen, but Rory had yet to tell her the title was more than honorific. Julie waved a small hello and Nora turned her attention back to her mother.

Rory examined the cast, holding back her tears of half worry, half relief. "I see that," she said.

"They gave me a sucker," Nora announced as she held up the green sucker. "But I want the moonpie Teddy Fuller said I could have if I could reach into the bird's nest. I was almost able to before these stupid shoes made me slip," she finished as she kicked her feet, indicating the saddle shoes she wore. She crossed her eyes in thought, an expression Rory had seen Logan wear on more than a few occasions. "I bet I can still get that moonpie if I show him my mummy arm," she said.

"Miss Gilmore?" the daytime pediatrician asked as he came back into the room. Rory had been in this ER enough to know him, mostly with Nickolas's asthma attacks.

"Yes?"

"Well, it was quite a nasty fall, or that's my understanding, and she's got some cuts and bruises, and you might see more bruising come up in the next 24 hours, but that's probably nothing to be alarmed at. If your daughter complains of any severe pain you should bring her back, and she should be back in six weeks to see about having her cast removed, or if you would rather, her pediatrician can do it, but either way we should do another x-ray to ensure that it's remodeled enough that the cast can be removed safely. You should try to keep her out of any trees in the meantime, and we did a PET scan and a CAT scan, and she hasn't got a concussion, no internal injuries, absolutely nothing wrong with her beyond the arm being broken."

"Can she go home or do you need to keep her here?"

"No, she can go home, that's fine. We gave her a light sedative, the same thing that we gave you when you fractured your wrist, since we don't have any basis to go on, as far as drug allergies. You should be fairly well aware of the side effects."

"Yeah, it makes you kind of loopy, I remember. She's not usually sick, so it's not been an issue before."

"True, it's usually Nickolas that's in here."

"And something much more mundane than falling out of a tree for chasing a bird's nest," he said with a chastising look at Nora. Nora was unfazed by it, but she was starting to look a bit sleepy. "If you have any problems, call, otherwise, have the break checked in 6 weeks, and the cast should be off within 8."

"Thank you, Doctor," she said, taking the paperwork he was handing her, putting it directly into her bag. "I will probably call her pediatrician to make sure he knows about this, they have a check up in a few weeks, and I'll schedule her x-ray then."

"Good," he said, "The nurse's desk has your check out paperwork, and then you are on your way," he said, and exited the room.

Lorelai picked up Nora, and she sleepily consented to being carried. "Where's your car, Hun?" she asked.

"Stamford," Rory said with a sigh.

"I've got to go back there anyway, I could give a ride to whoever is coming to pick it up; you said your keys were on your desk?"

"They are," she said.

"I'll go," Chris volunteered, "Emily and Richard picked me up at work, and so I need a ride somewhere close to my car anyway, I can do that after I drop your car off to you."

"And I have a second, third, fourth, whatever set of booster seats in the back of the Jeep, and shouldn't you be picking up Nickol sometime soon?" Lorelai said.

She glanced up at the clock, which said it was nearly two. "Yeah, he gets out of school at 2:30. I don't know why they didn't bring him down with her, he must have been hysterical, and when he gets that upset, it tends to send him into an asthma attack."

"Why don't you all come over for dinner, I know it's not Friday, but since everyone is in Hartford anyway, it would be nice to have everyone over," Emily said.

"Yeah, that's fine Mom," Lorelai said. "Chris is going to be three hours getting Rory's car, and it will be dinner time by then, and I'm sure Andrea will be just as upset by Nora's fall as Rory is."

"Why would she be?" Emily asked.

"Because, she's taken care of those two since they were little bitty, and that tends to make you care about kids, even if they aren't your own," Lorelai patiently explained.

"Should we call Sookie and tell her Nora is ok?" Rory asked.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea, Hun. You sign Nora out, and I'll get her in the car, and bring it around and pick you up, we'll go pick up Nickolas, and in the meantime we can talk," Lorelai said in a tone that said not to argue with her.

"When should we expect you at the house?" Emily asked.

"Probably three, maybe a little later, depends on traffic," Lorelai said, watching her father's retreating back.

"Alright, I will see you in about an hour," Emily said, and Lorelai took off to get the Jeep.

* * *

Rory climbed into her mother's Jeep after getting all of the check-out paperwork done and walking her grandmother to her car. She looked back, checking on Nora, who was buckled in to her booster seat, and she barely opened her eyes to her mother getting into the car. "So, what are you going to tell him?"

"That it was a family emergency."

"Okay, maybe I should rephrase that. When are you going to tell him?"

Rory scrunched her face up, knowing that evading the question would only get her a lecture, like she was still twelve or something. "I don't know."

"Do you think that you can hide this from him indefinitely?"

"No, but he didn't want to know six years ago, so I don't see what would have changed."

"You can't know that, babe, and he needs a chance to at least prove you right, that he doesn't want this."

"I'm afraid that he will use them."

"Use them for what?"

"Emotional leverage, you know, as a reason to get back into my life."

Lorelai nodded. "I would be really sad for you if he tried that, but I would be more sad for him, that he would stoop to that."

Rory sighed. "I guess he'd probably be here if I had already told him, but God, why did he have to be gone six years?"

"Do you think he would try to be a good father?"

"If he didn't have to answer to his dad and his grandfather, yeah, maybe, probably."

"So, if he would be a good father without them, why wouldn't he be a good father with them?"

"I don't think it would change. But I don't think that either of them could be trusted not to hurt them."

"Families hurt each other, Hun, it's just a part of things. Do you really think it's fair either to him or to them to keep them apart based on what Elias and Mitchum might do?"

"You kept me away from Grandma and Grandpa for that reason," she pointed out.

"Oh, burn. I also kept them away from me. But I never said that you couldn't see Chris."

"What if Dad hadn't wanted to see me?"

"Then he wouldn't have seen you, but I always gave him the option. I tried to do what I could to balance what I needed and what you needed and what he needed as best as I could. I'm not perfect, but I tried, and Chris tried. It's time for you to let Logan try."

"It scares me, what I know about what Logan went through, and to think about them trying to subject Nickol to those same pressures. Logan handled it badly, I'm afraid Nickolas will handle it even worse."

"And letting that stop you from telling their father about them is not going to help them or him or you. I know that you tried. I tried, Mom tried, and once the doctor put you on bed rest, it wasn't something that anyone wanted to talk about, and I know that you even went out to California to see him, but Rory, this is more than about you and him, and you have to see that at some point, for Nick and Nora's sake if for no other reason."

"I know, it's just so hard to even think about. How's he going to react, how am I going to react."

"I think you need to open the door to Nickol and Nora to Logan. What happens from there is his choice, Babe, you can't control that."

"You're right," Rory said. "I should probably tell him."

"I hear that 'but.' Out with it."

"This isn't about what Logan will do, or even what he might do. It's about protecting Nickolas and Nora from people who definitely won't have their best interests at heart."

"You don't trust Logan to protect them?" Lorelai asked quietly.

Rory grimaced. "Not entirely. Mitchum's already been in the same room with them, and I about had a heart attack at the calculating way he was looking at them. Not like they were his grandkids, but like they were property."

"Babe, that's not a reason to keep them away from Logan. Make it clear that his family is off limits for the moment. I did that with Chris, and he understood why. Straub was a lot like Mitchum, and I know that Chris misses the way that it might have been between them more than he misses the actual man, but he doesn't see that. You only met him a couple of times, I saw him about as much as I saw my own parents; until you came along Mom and Francine were almost inseparable. We were over at their house three or four times a week, and they were at ours nearly that much. If we ate dinner alone more than once a week, I would be surprised."

"We're here, I should get Nickol," Rory said as they pulled up into a line of cars. She walked into the building and to his classroom.

"Hi, how is Nora?" her teacher asked straight off.

"A broken arm is all," Rory said, thankfulness flooding her voice.

"Good, I'm glad she wasn't more seriously hurt."

"Where's Nickol?"

"I believe he's in the Principal's Office," she said, and since there were no more kids in the room she came to the door, "I'll show you. He wasn't outside at recess, and it wasn't until after Nora was gone that anyone realized he was missing. We found him eventually in the library, wedged between two of the book stacks reading."

Rory laughed softly and shook her head. "I'm not surprised. Maybe now it won't be such a fight to get him in the building."

"I would have thought as quickly as he learns that he would be the one racing to get to the entrance."

"He's not adjusted to the large groups. He didn't do well in a daycare-type environment, so I have a nanny who's now doing a lot more housekeeping than kid-keeping, and we kept trying to find different environments that he would do well in, but he's more for the staying at home and reading or playing with just Nora, and sometimes Steve and Kwan than he is in a group environment."

"Steve and Kwan? Is this the other set of twins that they keep talking about?"

"Yes, they are sweet kids, half-Korean, and I grew up with their Mother, and they visit quite often."

They were at the office by this point, and Nickolas looked up from the book he was reading. "Mommy," he yelled, his little face lighting up, and rushed over to her. She scooped him up in a hug. After she put him down, she checked the title of the book he was reading, Old Yeller, and turned to the headmaster.

"We have had a rather eventful day today with regards to your two," he said apologetically. "And considering Nick's history, we thought it best to keep him here for the afternoon to prevent any, ah, over excitement in regards to Nora being gone."

"Nora's gone?" Nickolas asked, looking up.

"Gemma's got her in the Jeep out front," she reassured him.

"Gemma's here?" he asked excitedly. "Can we go to the car now?"

"Can I finish talking to the headmaster first?"

Nickolas paused, obviously thinking for a moment, then he said, "Yes," throwing himself back onto the bench and started reading again.

The headmaster blinked at the interaction. Most parents would have had to walk a child that age through the steps of 'if you don't obey me, you will be punished,' and have to remind them of what punishments were in their house. He could tell that Nickolas was fully aware of what punishments he might receive if he didn't obey, and that if he could wait for just a few moments, she would be done. Considering most parents, especially rich parents, couldn't control their children even half that well, he was very impressed with her, just in the short weeks he'd known her. "You have an interesting way about you, Ms. Gilmore. Considering the circumstances, we let him check the book out from the library, and I am given to understand that you are fairly free with what they are allowed to read."

"Yes, it's fine. I would rather have them reading and interested than not reading because I won't allow them to read "interesting" books," she said, putting air quotes around the word. "There isn't much I would forbid, and I'm sure your list of what's banned from the library here is much more extensive."

"That book he has is slated for second-graders. I hadn't realized that we had such advanced children in our kindergarten."

"Well, keep an eye on them, they both read voraciously. Did I need to sign any paperwork to allow them free rein in the library?"

"Perhaps just a word with the librarian."

"I'll do that tomorrow," she said with a sigh. "Did you need anything else from me?"

"Is Nora alright?" he questioned quietly, hoping to keep it from Nickolas's hearing.

She nodded. "A broken arm. I think I'm going to keep her home tomorrow, and stay home with her, and I will speak with the librarian at some point during the day."

He sighed with relief. "I won't keep you from your family any longer, then."

"Come on, Nickol, Gemma's waiting for us," she said, holding her hand out and he scrambled down, grabbing hold of it. "We should stop by and get your book bags."

He was holding his place in his book with a finger, and she smiled to herself. Once they got the book bags and were out in the Jeep, she found her old stash of bookmarks and silently handed one to Nickolas. "I found the library, Gemma," he announced.

"I'm glad," she said, and he frowned, looking over at Nora.

"Nora?" he asked, poking her.

"She broke her arm, sweetie, and they gave her medicine that made her sleepy," Lorelai told him.

"She's ok, just sleepy?" he asked, and Nora roused sufficiently to answer for herself.

"Nicky," Nora said, "Look, I got a mummy arm."

"I see," he said, touching it gingerly. "I got a book in the library."

"There's a library?" Nora asked.

"Yeah, and it's all kids books. It's like as big as Mommy's whole library."

"Wow," Nora said, sounding suitably impressed.

"You gotta see it," he said, and she yawned.

"Just go back to sleep, Nora," Rory told her. "You'll be fine tomorrow."


	4. It frightens me what I'd like to do to y

**A/N:**_ Sorry this took so long to update. I just got distracted and life happened. So here is the next chapter._

* * *

Chapter 3: It frightens me to think of what I'd like to do to you. 

* * *

When Lorelai pulled up in front of the Gilmore mansion the only thing lacking was the anxiety and misgivings that plagued dinner with her parents for so long. The sight of Rory's car in the drive indicated that Chris was already here. The sight of Francene's silver jag beside her parents also informed Lorelai of the obvious. She glanced into the rear view mirror at the two worn out five year olds in the back seat and she recalled the incentive to change the status quo amongst the Gilmores. If there was one thing that Lorelai Victoria Gilmore was fiercely passionate about, it was her only daughter, Rory. And when her daughter carried on with panic attacks and hysterical crying fits during her own pregnancy, something that Rory should have been happy about but was too racked with feelings of abandonment and being a disappointment to her family, Lorelai decided it was time to take drastic measures. Loerlai did the impossible for Rory. She strong-armed the whole family into going into family counseling. She use the threat of a rift between Rory and Richard and Emily to blackmail her parents into it. She used emotional blackmail into getting Chris involved who in turn convinced Francene into joining the unpleasant fun. It had taken five sessions to get everyone to start talking, ten for the arguing to stop. Five more to get blame out of the way and fifteen more to learn how to actually listen to one another and many more for them to get over all of their issues from the past twenty-three years and become what they should have been all along. A family. It was something Lorelai had longed for during her childhood and it was a new era in the Gilmore/Hayden family. They were a united front and a force to be reckoned with should the inevitable happen and they would have to go up against the Huntzbergers. If there was one thing that the Gilmores had in their possession, it was the trump card to all. It was the Gilmores who possessed the very thing the Huntzbergers valued. The heir to their fortune and company and there wasn't a fighting chance in hell that they would allow Mitchum and Elias to do to Nickolas what they did to Logan. Rory had shared many details about how that much pressure had affected Logan and what she believed to be the negative aspects of that pressure was and she adamantly voiced her determination to shield her son from being subjected to what his father had been subjected to.

To his credit, Christopher stood impassively in Rory's corner on that subject. He knew first hand how that kind of pressure became negative influence. In the day he became a grandfather, Chris finally became a man with enough balls to do what he should have done all along. Be there for Rory 100% and support her. He even threatened to cut his own mother off from everything if she didn't make nice with his daughter. Francene was incensed at her son's ultimatum for weeks but once she realized just how incredible Rory was, she came to adore her as much as Richard and Emily did. Christoper's actions in those days had managed to finally impress Luke enough for the two men to make amends enough to make friends. The day Lorelai and Luke finally made it to the alter, with Christopher in attendance as a groomsman, Rory was given not just a real dad but two fathers. Rory and April's relationship became closer than step-sisters, they considered themselves to be real sisters and when Rory gave April a recommendation for Yale, she referred to April as her sister, period. Even Gigi adored April, asking to call April her sister too and in complete worship of her own sister, she had a wall in her bedroom dedicated to Yale.

Rory stepped out of the Jeep and moved the seat forward and reached in to unbuckle Nora from her booster seat. He daughter was sound asleep, and she was careful not to disturb her as she pulled her out of the car. When she shifted Nora in her arms, she briefly stirred enough to wrap her arms around Rory's neck and snuggled closer and that was all the movement she made before her breathing evened out again. Nickolas unhooked himself and climbed out of the Jeep, the book tucked firmly under his arm as he hopped out of the jeep, tucking his small hand into Rory's as they crossed the driveway and stepped up to the front door which swung open instantly by Emily.

"Well, come on, everyone is here," she said with a smile, stepping aside to allow them entrance. "How was the park?"

"With the sedative, Nora was a wonderful, quiet child," Rory quipped. "I expect her to be fully back to herself tomorrow."

"Did Nickolas enjoy it?"

"I did, Grams. Ten kids came and signed Nora's mummy arm, and Gemma pushed me on the swing, and I played in the sand and made a huge sand castle."

"I think I'm going to take Nora upstairs so she can sleep," Rory said, looking at her grandmother.

"Yes, that's fine," Emily told her.

That was when Chris turned the corner and Nickolas spotted him. "G-Pa!" Nickolas yelled rushing over to tackle into his grandfather.

"Whoa there, Buddy!" Chris chuckled, returning the hug, his eyes watching his daughter as she ascended the stairs with Nora in her arms. He gave his grandson his full attention and squatted down to be eye level with the five-year old and fished around in his pocket. "Hey, Nickol, I was at Martha's Vineyard this weekend and I stumbled onto something when I took a walk on the beach that I thought you might like," he said and dropped a small shark tooth in the middle of Nickolas' palm.

Nickolas eyed the treasure, his blue eyes shining in excitement. "Wow! A real shark tooth!" he said.

Chris smiled at Nickolas's delight at the find. There was a special kind of enjoyment in making his grandchildren happy with something so simple and small. They were much like Rory when she was their age and he feared letting them down in the way he had let Rory down so many times. "I bet you five whole dollars if you can identify its origin by next week," he encouraged.

"Okay!" Nickolas said excitedly, a look of great determination in his eyes.

"Why don't you go into the sitting room and see what Nanna has for you," Chris suggested.

"Okay," Nickolas agreed as he hurried into the sitting room.

Chris stood up to face Emily and Lorelai.

"You make them really happy, Chris," Lorelai told him.

"I hope so," Chris said putting his hands in his pockets.

"Listen, we need to talk to Rory about Logan," Lorelai told them.

"Oh boy," Chris exhaled a breath. "Do we have to gang up on her?" he asked.

"Chris..." Lorelai left off what she had to say, not really needing to say it.

"Alright," he relented, throwing up his hands, "What's the strategy?"

Lorelai put an arm around Emily's. "Well, Mom, I was thinking you could start the conversation."

"I assume that you tried your own conversation and failed before coming to me," Emily stated.

"Well, if anyone can get the ball rolling, then it's you, Mom," Lorelai pointed out.

"I'm sure I can think of something. Is Luke going to be joining us tonight?"

Lorelai shook her head, "It's parent's night at Yale. And if we are ganging up on Rory, it would be best to do it on a night that he's not here, you know how he gets about Rory, even if I were to support such a course of action, he still sees her as the little eight-year-old girl that first entered his diner."

"How is April adjusting to university life?"

"She's doing good, as well as Rory did, I think. Hopefully she won't meet a boy who makes her so completely crazy that she doesn't talk to us for three months and drops out of school."

"Let's hope," Emily said, her voice strained. "At least if she does, it won't be a Huntzberger, though I hear that Gillian McCrea is going to be a Freshman there this year."

"Colin's little sister?" Rory asked as she came down the stairs.

"I believe so, yes," Emily agreed. "How is Nora?"

"She's still out. I'm just hoping that she doesn't wake up at four this morning, and be running around like a maniac."

"Well, with consideration to the fact that the kids are probably hungry, dinner is going to be early tonight," Emily said. "Do you want to get Nora up to eat?"

"I think I'll just let her sleep, she's not going to starve, and I'll make sure that there is a good breakfast for them tomorrow, not just cereal."

"I like cereal," Nickolas protested.

"I know, sweetie, and I also know that's mostly because you can fix it yourself. But don't you think eggs and bacon and toast tomorrow would be good?"

"I guess," he agreed. "Can I have cereal, too?"

"Sure," she relented. Placated, he went back to his book. "Put the book down, it's time for dinner."

"Aw, Mommy, no."

"Come on, you have to eat. Books are not food."

He left the book on the table in the living room, because taking it to the table would be too much of a temptation. He and Gigi sat at the end of the table between Rory and Chris, and Lorelai, Francine, Emily and Richard sat at the other end of the table. Her parents were seated across from each other, which was probably safest, though perhaps not as it put Emily right next to her daughter.

"I saw Logan Huntzberger when I was at the DAR meeting last week, Francine. I had heard that he was coming back to town, but I hadn't heard when," Emily said as she sat down with the last salad plate. She was, without explanation, doing the service for the dinner.

"Really? He has been gone forever," Francine answered the comment.

"He was having lunch with Honor Preston," Emily said, "And she wasn't looking particularly well."

"That is sad, I'm sorry to hear."

"No one has seen their mother in a year, maybe more. No one really knows why."

"She has stage four lung cancer, Logan told me today," Rory said.

"She probably doesn't want that to be public knowledge. She has always been a very proud woman," Francine said, shaking her head. The conversation lulled as they ate and contemplated Shira Huntzberger's demise.

It was after Emily brought out the main course that conversation picked up again. "Aren't you friends with Honor, Rory?" Emily asked her.

"Yes, we go out occasionally."

"And she didn't tell you about her mother?"

"I don't really ask after her family, I'm sure you understand."

"Well, yes. I do, after the way that they've treated you, all of them."

"Logan actually is a fairly decent person, Grandma," Rory argued.

"Not if he won't return your phone calls for six years," Emily argued. "That boy is as arrogant as his father, a Huntzberger through and through."

"The fact that he is a Huntzberger is irreverent, Emily," Francine interrupted placidly. "Straub had always had a few choice words about that boy over the years."

"Remind me why I didn't kill the little weasel when I walked in on him pawing Rory," Chris muttered.

"He's not so little anymore, Chris, Logan is a big weasel now," Lorelai told him.

"Lorelai..." Emily warned.

"Christopher and Francine are right, Emily. That boy seduced Rory and left her stranded!" Richard stated.

"Logan didn't seduce me!" Rory said, exasperated, and not for the first time.

"I wouldn't say that in public, Dear," Francene warned, her eyes sharp. "People still talk about how Shria Huntzberger claimed that you seduced her precious boy from his appointed path," she reminded her granddaughter.

"That is because in the world according to Shira, Logan can do nothing wrong," Emily stated. "That woman chooses to wear rose-tinted glasses to every little thing her son does. Logan is never to blame, everyone else is," she stated, jabbing her fork into the lamb on her plate.

"He's her son, he has every right to look at him with however much adoration she wants to. God knows he probably needed someone to do so with Mitchum and Elias as a father and a grandfather," Lorelai reasoned.

Emily looked at her daughter shrewdly. "I simply cannot believe that you are defending that woman after how she treated Rory," she stated.

"I'm not defending Shira, Mom. I'd like to punch her but since she is dying, I don't have it in me to kick an injured dog. All I'm saying is that when you live in the Ice King's Palace, it is okay to shower that much love onto a person if you are the only one doing so."

"The first opportunity I get, I'm punching that pompous jackass who goes by the name Mitchum, and this time I know what he looks like so there won't be any mistakes," Christoper stated.

"Christopher!" Francene scolded. "I will not tolerate any display of violence."

"You're not punching Mitchum, Dad," Rory commanded, looking at her father.

"Listen to you're daughter, Christopher, she obvious has some sense," Francene told him.

Rory made sure that the kids were eating their vegetables before looking back to her father. "There are more effective ways to deal with Mitchum Huntzberger than resorting to violence and still have the same feeling of satisfaction," she added.

"Rory!" Emily said aghast.

Richard perked up at this. "Well, you've got my attention, Rory, please, continue," he said.

"Richard! Do not encourage this," Emily warned.

"I agree with Dad, let the Godmother speak," Lorelai spoke up, using her imitation godfather accent.

"It's quite simple, really. All you have to have is something that he wants, and not be willing to part with it."

"It would have to be something quite rare, and special then," Richard said. "The man has more money than he knows what to do with."

"Something money can't buy. But I can't think of any thing that I would dangle in front of Mitchum Huntzberger without thinking that he might cause it harm," she said, and the slight emphasis that she gave to the word thing gave a dawning admiration to Chris.

"I see," he said. "I do think I see."

"Well, I don't see," Emily said.

"This, Grandma," Rory said, waving her fork. "If he saw how we are, how we live, even the fact that Dad has a good relationship with, you know," her eyes darted to Nickolas, who seemed oblivious.

"He doesn't have a good relationship with his son, why would he care if he had a good relationship with his grandkids?" Emily asked.

"Because, he doesn't have any relationship with them," Rory said. "And thinking about having the kind of influence that he would get as an adored grandparent would drive him just the slightest bit up the wall."

"You aren't advocating this, are you?" Richard asked.

"Not really, not until certain events come to pass."

"It seems inevitable that it will be soon," Lorelai said.

"Yes," Rory admitted with a grimace. "I'm just not sure when. He's so infuriatingly smug most of the time, I just want to do something to wipe the smile off his face."

"This bit of news would do it, I think," Chris said. "I think it took me weeks to get over it when I was faced with similar news."

"It's not really something you get over, Dear," Francine said to him. "It changes you forever, and it changes your life forever."

"Does anyone want desert?" Emily asked, as most everyone seemed to be finished with their plates.

Even Gigi and Nick were full, at least right that moment. "Why don't you kids run along to the playroom?" Emily asked, and the adults started to adjourn to the sitting room.

Emily picked up her plates and took them to the kitchen, and Rory and Lorelai followed suit, each taking additional plates that her other guests had been using. "I fired the maid today," she explained, "She kept eying the good silver with her shady eyes..."

"Shady eyes, Mom? was she eying the silver with sunglasses?" Lorelai asked. "Oooh, I know, she was wearing a pair of those Kanye West sunglasses that look like little plastic blinds for the eyes..."

Emly gave her a look. "Honestly, the things that come out of your mouth," she said with a frown. "I was going to call the agency and get a new maid sent, but then the school called, and I had to go shopping, and I didn't get to it today. I suppose that I will have to wait until the morning."

"It's okay, Grandma, we can help clean up," Rory said, and she was summarily shooed out of the way by one of the cooks. Emily didn't usually have a problem keeping cooks, but they mostly ignored her and spoke Spanish. It was the people who had to interact with other members of the household she had a problem keeping. Maybe it was the way that she fretted about everything, but she was almost never satisfied with a maid longer than a week.

"I think if we just get everything in here, it will magically wash itself," Lorelai quipped.

"That isn't exactly how it happens, Lorelai," Emily said.

"It was a joke, Mom," Lorelai said with a roll of her eyes.

"When we go back out there can we talk about something other than Logan, please?" Rory begged as they gathered the last of the dishes and took them into the kitchen.

"If we must," Emily said. "But you know that we are right."

"That doesn't mean that I want to talk about it, especially in front of the kids."

* * *

Rory listened to the goings on in the other room for any sound other than Tom and Jerry from the TV. She knew that Nora wasn't really watching it but rather pouting. Rory spent the better part of the morning doing battle with a five year old over school but in the end she had won. Convinced that her daughter needed to take it easy and resting had Rory keeping her home today. The irrational, overprotective mom side had won out over her rational side in making this decision. Rory didn't want to blame the school for Nora's fall but irrationally she did with a whole list of reasons for her daughter's fall; the bottom line being negligence. That train of thought was over and gone once it reached the end. The real bottom line; Nora is her father's daughter and a team of doctors with tranquilizers wouldn't be able to stop her from doing something dangerous and reckless. Rory was releieved that Nora only a broke arm as opposed to internal bleeding, a collapsed lung, six broken ribs, a broken ankle, torn cartilage in both knees and a concussion and that she wasn't base jumping from the very top of that tree. What worried Rory the most was the prospects of Nora following Logan's footsteps into the most dangerous stunts of the Life and Death Brigade.

Her fingers trailed along the barely-cracked-open cookbook she had dug out of a box in the hall closet. A basic international cuisine for breakfast cookbook, only ever used a few times in the past. But despite that, there were little notes here and there in the recipe margins in Logan's handwriting. They had bought this cookbook together after she moved into the apartment in New Haven, just before Honor's wedding. It was an idea she had to go along with the whole playing house concept. After reading the first three recipes Rory decided it was way too complicated and set it aside which half annoyed, half amused Logan. Rory could still hear his half teasing lecture on why buy a cookbook when she had no intention to use it.

Flipping a crisp page, Rory chewed on her bottom lip in concentration. She reached for the phone and dialed the familiar number she'd had memorized since she was eight without looking away from the page.

"Luke's Diner."

"Hey, how do you fold an egg?"

"Rory?"

"I figured that since you were the cooking expert in the family then you could tell me."

"Please tell me you are no where near a stove."

"I'm making Nora breakfast," Rory told him innocently.

"Step away from the stove!" the caution Luke threw behind those words made her smile.

"I haven't walked up to the stove since it caught on fire an hour ago. I took it as a sign that the stove wasn't in the mood for crepes," Rory told him seriously.

"Don't do anything, I'll be there ASAP. God, you're worse than your mother, at least she doesn't try to touch the stove," Luke told her.

"Thank you, Luke!" Rory said cheerily before hanging up. She flipped the cookbook closed and stuffed it down in the bottom of the junk drawer and dusted her hands off. She rounded the counter and left the kitchen, stopping in the doorway to the living room to see that she was right. Nora was still pouting. She sighed as she walked over and squatted in front of her. "I get it, you're mad. I would be mad too if I were in your position." No response. "I'm only doing this because I love you, Sweets. I was so scared after you're school called me to tell me you had fallen out of a tree and they brought to the hospital. A million and one things ran through my mind," she told her.

"I'm alive," Nora told her, giving her the same sour look Rory had seen Logan give Mitchum several times and she hung her head with a sigh.

"Yes and I want to ensure that you stay this way so you will have to forgive me for being a little overprotective from time to time," she told her daughter. "How's this, I'll take you to the park for lunch and you can run around there if you promise me something," she bargained.

"Promise what?" Nora asked curiously.

"That you won't base jump off of a cliff in Costa Rica, ever," Rory said.

"What is base jumping?" Nora asked.

"Jumping off of something really tall for no logical reason," Rory told her.

"I won't do that, I could die!" Nora stated.

"So do you promise to never base jump off a cliff in Costa Rica?" Rory asked.

Nora nodded. "I promise, Mommy," she said.

Rory kissed her forehead. "Thank you so much, Sweets," she said, the weight of many things behind her voice.

* * *

Logan hadn't heard anything from Rory when he went into work the next morning. She wasn't there, and that worried him. Something had to have been awfully wrong for her to get that concerned that quickly. Julie showed up though, and Rory's car had disappeared overnight, so perhaps it wasn't completely terrible. He stopped by Julie's office, and she looked up, giving him the briefest of smiles. "Hey, so I was wondering what happened at lunch."

"I'm under orders not to discuss it with you. Since I don't like you, I don't want to talk to you at all, so, really, not that hard, and unnecessary to tell me. Rory should be in this afternoon, if you want to discuss it with someone," Julie said as she took some article folders off her desk and started to distribute them to several reporters. After she did that, she went into Rory's office, found more article folders, and passed those out to a different group of reporters.

Logan followed her, but he couldn't think of anything to say to get her to talk to him, and she was ignoring him as though he didn't even exist in her world. Perhaps he didn't. Her world was reporters, and her boss was Rory. He didn't have to exist for her. But he had hoped to have made a better impression on her than he obviously had. So he tried very hard to focus on the reason that he was here, and that was getting to know the inner workings of the Stamford Eagle Gazette.

* * *

Rory walked into the office after lunch, having taken care of her daughter for the morning. Nora had insisted that she wanted to go back to school straight away, but Rory wasn't completely sure about the idea. She'd relented, finally, dropping Nora off just before she normally had lunch at school, and then heading in to work.

Logan was behind her almost instantly. "Where have you been?" he whispered into her ear. She whirled on him and backed up a couple of steps to put some distance between them.

"I was taking care of a family emergency," she said calmly.

Logan followed her as she walked into her office. "What kind of family emergency? You didn't tell me when you left, and you have been gone all afternoon yesterday, and all morning this morning."

"It turned out to be nothing really serious," she said. "And I'd like to get started on my work, Julie can keep up some when I'm not here, but it's not an ideal situation."

"If it wasn't serious, why were you still gone this morning?" he questioned her, laying out some documents that Julie had given him to have her approve.

She started looking over Julie's notes and approving and disapproving as she saw fit, "I needed some time to deal with a couple of things. Everything is fine now, and if Julie didn't think that she could handle things, I would have came in."

"Julie doesn't like me," he commented as he sat on the edge of her desk, watching her work.

"And this surprises you?"

"I don't know. What did you tell her about me?"

"Absolutely nothing. She's formed her own opinions about you based on her own experiences. You are not the end-all, be-all of life. I answered a couple of yes and no questions about you. She already had the ideas as to what her opinions were before she came to me, and why do you care what Julie thinks of you?"

"You two are close, and I trust your opinion of people, so I want to get to know her better, which won't happen as long as she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you, she just doesn't like you. She isn't going to get any more emotionally invested in you than mild dislike."

"What about you?"

She finished the document she was looking at, and sat back, looking at him, considering. "I don't know what I feel about you right now, Logan, but it's not really that important."

"I find it important."

"If you are going to be my boss then this is an inappropriate conversation for us to be having. I'm not your girlfriend anymore, and I'm not anything to you. We haven't spoken in over six years, so I'm not even sure we're still friends. And you are in a position of authority over me, so anything that you want in that vein you should consider very carefully because it could easily turn into sexual harassment, and if it does, don't think I won't make the claim because you're you."

"Okay, Ace, you've made your point. Nothing you say about whatever relationship we have is going to have any effect on your job, your position or your authority here at this paper. I don't want you to think that. I was just wondering where I stood."

"It's not something where I can just pick up where I left off with you, Logan, and I don't want to. I have moved on with my life, and you aren't in it anymore, and that was your choice."

"I want to make this right between us, Ace. I didn't understand what I was doing, walking away like that."

"Then you should have done something about it before your father dragged you back to Hartford," she said, standing up too quickly and stumbling forward-right into his arms.

"If I hadn't wanted to come back, I wouldn't have," he said as he righted her, then pulled her closer, doing what he'd wanted to do from the moment he had seen her again, and he kissed her.

She hesitated, but then she responded to his touch, to his lips. He slid off the desk, not breaking the kiss, pressing her back, toward the wall, finally coming up for breath as he had her caged. "Logan," she breathed, and before she could tell him no again, he pressed his lips against hers, running his hands down her back. It was a moment before she was back into it, and he slid his hand across her waist, and under the back of her blouse, and he could feel her hands against his chest, hesitating, maybe wanting to push him away, maybe wanting to take this further, but there, at the pinnacle of doubt and hesitation, he knew what buttons to push to make her start down the path back to him, but only if he handled it just right, and he was, if he was honest with himself, out of practice.

He pulled back just a little, and she balled her hands into his shirt, pulling him closer again, before breaking off the kiss. "Logan, we can't, you're my boss now, and..." she closed her eyes as she trailed off. "This isn't going to work, Logan, no matter how hard you try. It's over, and it's been over for six years."

"I know you still have feelings for me, so it's only over if you want it to be. We can rekindle the flames, and it can work this time, Rory. I know what it's like to live without you, and I'd much rather have you than to be away from you again."

"So, it's just that simple for you? It's not that simple for me."

"It can be," he said and he pressed his lips against hers again. It was like old times, and he knew that with a little more time, he could get her to agree to anything, and he would do the same, just if she would come back to him, that was all he wanted, and the door to her office opened.

It was Julie, who simply arched an eyebrow, and asked, "These are done?" picking up a pile of edits from their usual place. Rory nodded, escaping from within reach of Logan. "I'll be back in ten minutes for the rest of them," she said in a disapproving tone.

Rory sat back down at her desk, and reached for the pile of pages she needed to edit. Logan sighed, leaning back against the wall. "Alright then," he said, straightening his suit, adjusting his tie and then running his hand through his hair.

"I would go check myself in the bathroom before I went anywhere else if I were you," she said, glancing up at him.

"Thanks," he said dryly, recognizing that the moment had passed, at least for now.

* * *

Logan walked into the men's room, and there was a young, very blond man primping at the mirror. He looked in the mirror, ignoring the other man. His shirt was slightly wrinkled from Rory balling it in her fists as he'd kissed her, and he had a slight smear of lipstick on his face, but he was otherwise unrumpled.

"Looks like you've been having fun," the man said.

He snorted a laugh and shook his head. "A day in the life is never complete."

"So, who is she?"

He laughed outright. "No. A gentleman never kisses and tells."

"Come on, man, there hasn't been any good juicy gossip in this place in ages."

"It's not going to be from me," Logan said with a frown, and ignored further comments from the man until he left, and he made certain that he was once again presentable.

* * *

  
Kate Douglas was not always the biggest gossip in the room, but she always knew where to find the dirt on people. And she'd been itching to get some on the absolutely hunkalicious Logan Huntzberger.

"Kate," squealed Ted, one of the perpetual interns that no one had ever made leave or promoted beyond a fetch-and-carry job. Every office needed its serfs, they just went by different names at different times and places. The man was so gay that she wasn't sure that he didn't sweat rainbows on hot days.

"What?" she said, dragging him into her office and closing the door.

"I just saw the most wretchedly gossip-worthy thing."

"Which was?" she asked, feigning boredom, but she was actually intensely interested. The bored look usually got her the juicy bits faster.

"I just left the bathroom and guess who was in there?"

"I can't imagine," she said dryly. "I just hope whoever it was was male."

"He was that," he said, and then paused dramatically. "Logan Huntzberger."

"The significance of this still eludes me."

"He was wiping away lipstick and his suit was very mussed."

"Really?" she said, leaning further back and tapping the pen in her hands to her lips. "What color?"

"Office pink," he said, disappointed. At least half the office wore muted nearly indistinguishably different shades of pink that were 'suitable' for daytime wear.

"How terribly fortuitous for whoever it was he was having fun with. How far do you think it went?"

"Considering the state of his shirt, pretty far. You can still see the wrinkles even with his suit jacket closed if you know what you are looking for."

"Alright. Go find out who might have been gone for long enough for something interesting to have happened," she ordered him. He complied, and Kate pulled up the list of employees.

* * *

Logan pulled up in his parents driveway around the time that dinner was ending and sat behind the wheel for a long time, gathering up the courage to actually get out and enter the house. He had prolonged this visit for long enough. The sight of his father's Jag in the driveway in front of him indicated that he was home early. Honor said that he left the office earlier than usual lately but Logan hadn't noticed until now. Breathing in deeply, he opened his car door and stepped out. There were several ways in and out of the huge mansion occupied by four generations of Huntzbergers. His mother hated it when he would just walk in unannounced but this was one time that he was sure she wouldn't mind.

Intent on avoiding Mitchum and Elias, Logan headed around back to the kitchen entrance, walking through the garden gate and making sure to wipe the dirt off of his shoes before walking in. The cook and the maid looked up at his entrance, surprised to see him. He used to sneak in through this door in his youth after drag racing at three AM so that he wouldn't be noticed. Luckily, Maria and Anthony didn't say anything and went back to their work. Logan took that as a good sign and headed up the servant stairs and once he hit the third floor he nearly ran into his father who didn't look surprised to see him coming up the way he did.

"Well, someone new, have we met?" Mitchum said.

"Jack Daniels, ten days sober, got lost, thought this was my house," Logan offered up off the top of his head. Sometimes it was good to have a routine.

"If you're looking for your mother, she's in the blue room," Mitchum told him before continuing down the hall.

Logan squared his shoulders and shrugged out of his jacket and slung it over his arm as he walked down the hall, stopping at the door to the blue room, hesitating before knocking. "Mom?" he called through the door. No answer, but he didn't really need one. Opening the door slightly, he peeked inside, spotting his mother sitting up in bed, an open book in her lap and a glass of tea in her hand. He stepped inside and set his jacket over the back of a chair. The lights were on dim and the soft sounds of Paul Simon played in muted tones. Shira Huntzberger looked different than he remembered her. A silk scarf covered her head and she was thinner than he had ever seen her, the silk robe she wore too big for her now. She looked up and spotted him, her face beaming in happiness at seeing him.

"Logan!" Shira cried. She closed her book and set it aside along with her drink. "Come, sit with me," she requested and patted the spot on the bed beside her.

Logan smiled as he slipped his shoes off before doing as asked. He remembered doing this often when he was little when his father was working late. As he stretched his legs out in front of him, Shira put her arms around him. "This is a pleasant surprise," she said, rubbing his arm briefly and giving his a quick squeeze.

"What were you reading?" Logan asked, reaching for the discarded book. "Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin," he read off the cover. "Sooo, how are Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy doing?" he asked.

"I haven't read this in such a long time," Shira told him and she fingered the worn cover.

"Yeah, me neither," Logan agreed.

Shira looked at him. "Do you remember when I told you to read this as punishment?" she asked.

Logan smiled. "Only to find the punishment backfired," he remembered.

Shira smiled. "I knew then that you were special," she told him.

They used to have a close relationship, Logan recalled. His mother had always been the least of the three evils and the only one to have ever shown any affection. Logan's relationship with his mother only started to become strained when he became a teenager and she started trying to set him up with society girls of her picking and then hit rock bottom the night he brought Rory over for dinner. Logan never quite forgave Shira for the way she had treated his Ace that night. But all that didn't seem too important at the moment. He took his mother's hand in his own, interlocking their fingers, and kissed her knuckles. He realized for the first time how sick she was by how frail she had become and the guilt settled in. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," he told her.

Shira smoothed back his hair and kissed his forehead. "I know," she told him. "But you're here now, that's what counts." She looked him over shrewdly. "But you may want to get a hair cut soon," she noted as she looked at his longer-than-usual hair.

"I'll make an appointment tomorrow," Logan told her.

"Good," Shira said as she looked him over. "You're tanner than you were when I last saw you. Please tell me that you haven't taken up surfing and that wretched surfer's philosophy," she fretted.

"I can't say that it never crossed my mind," Logan said evasively.

"I expected that," Shira stated indulgently. She plastered a smile on her face, refusing to think about their time apart. "Tell me all about Palo Alto," She implored as she settled back against the headboard.

Logan put an arm around his mother and settled back himself as he started to tell her everything, deciding to paint a well detailed picture for her.

* * *

Logan spent four hours reminiscing and watching old movies with his mother just as they used to do when he was off from school, their nine year rift unacknowledged. Logan was loath to bring up their time apart and preferred to act like nothing happened between them to cause a rift. If he was honest with himself, he missed the mother/son bond they had once shared. Unlike many society child/parent relationships, there was actual love and affection between Logan and Shira who never failed to let him know that she loved him or that he was a much-wanted son. It wasn't easy for him to foolishly think she would be happy for him to have found someone worth committing to when he and Rory became an item. Instead, Shira never stopped to show her disapproval or even bothered to try to accept Rory as a part of his life. Going against Mitchum and Elias to be happy was easy but going against his mother was the hardest thing he had to do and when Shira forced him to choose between his family and Rory, he didn't hesitate to choose Rory, but it didn't stop him from one last ditch effort to appeal to his mother for her support just days before he proposed. He didn't realize that the woman he fought so hard against his family for would say no.

All of that was in the past and once faced with his mother's illness, everything else seemed so trivial. That didn't mean he was over it, not in the least. Just being around Rory was intoxicating and even as he sat with his mother he could completely focus on her; thoughts of Rory crept up every so often. In the last four hours he kept thinking that if only Shira and Rory were locked in a room together at least six years ago until they made nice, they might have found that they had lots in common.

As he entered his apartment building, Logan had to shake these thoughts off. They didn't matter. His mother and Rory no longer needed to get along. There hadn't been a him and Rory in six years now, and his mother was dying. The last part struck him as he stepped onto the elevator. It was painfully evident that his mother would be dead by the next year and he didn't know how to deal with that.

The sound of clicking heals on the marble floor brought Logan out of his thoughts as a brunette wearing a party dress ran across the lobby. "Hold the elevator!" she called.

Out of courtesy, Logan held the doors open for her as she hopped inside, placing a hand over her heart, breathing deeply. "Oh, thank you! I'm dying to get out of these heels and waiting for the elevator would just prolong the experience," she gushed in one single breath.

"No problem," Logan told her.

"Are you new to the building?" she asked.

"Uh yeah, just moved in last week," Logan told her.

"I thought so! You're the guy with the suit of armor, aren't you?" she didn't wait for an answer. "I'm Marla, 11D," she introduced herself.

"Logan, 12D," He told her.

Marla's eyes widened in a doe-eyed expression. "Right on top of me, how's that for good luck," she said with a smile.

Logan made the mistake in meeting her eyes, noting their light blue color and a different pair of blue eyes came to mind. "I'd say thats very lucky," he replied.

"You know, you have this Mr. Rochester feel about you," Marla stated, stepping closer to him.

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Are you just throwing classic literature references out there or have you actually read Jane Eye?" he asked.

"I wrote my theses on it in my women's studies class in collage," Marla told him.

"And what did you think of it?" he asked.

"That Jane Eyre was ahead of her time and yet greatly under appreciated," Marla told him in a breathless voice.

Two hours later, Logan laid in bed, staring up a the ceiling. Beside him, Marla rolled over, a cigarette between her fingers. "Do you mind?" she asked.

He actually did mind but said instead, "I have an early business meeting tomorrow, so it might be best if you didn't stay the night."

"Oh, well, I don't want to keep you," she said, rolling out of bed, in search for her clothes. "We should do this again sometime when you don't have an early meeting."

"Sure," Logan replied out of instinct as he sat up. "Would you mind leaving one?" he asked, gesturing towards the cigarette in her hand. He hadn't smoked anything other than a cigar since he was sixteen, but for some reason he had a rather strong craving for a cigarette.

"Sure thing," Marla told him after redressing, leaving behind one cigarette on the nightstand. Once he was sure she had left, he grabbed the cigarette, and opened his nightstand drawer, pulling out the gold lighter he kept inside out of habit. Under the lighter was a framed picture and he pulled it out, setting it down on the nightstand next him him. The happy couple inside the frame mocked him as he lit the cigarette up and took a drag. He really needed to figure out a way to get over her and to stop thinking of her as a possibility. The kiss from earlier in the day only served him as a setback in whatever bizarre recovery he had going for him. Maybe he should stop thinking of her as the woman he was still in love with and start thinking of her as just another employee.

* * *

Logan pulled up to the Eagle Gazzette on Friday. Rory wanted a strictly professional relationship with him now, and he could do that. He had no trouble doing that. She was just another employee. Another employee who had ripped his heart out and handed it to him. Maybe there was a part of him that had hoped she had waited, but that didn't seem like it had been the case. Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh but the day before just opened up a can of worms for him. Why he had to kiss her and why she had to push him away when it was clear that she wanted the same thing was really bugging him. But he could keep things professional. Couldn't he? Just because she was his world for so long and was beautiful, sharp, and carried this air about her that he couldn't pinpoint and God it would be a challenge to crack through her walls again...no, he needed to stop his train of thought and keep things professional. He could do that, no problem. Except keeping things casual didn't work and look where that lead him. There was no reason why that should work again, but...

The internal debate was going to be the death of him. Logan proceeded to halt all thoughts on that train so that he could keep things professional. He just had to stop thinking about her as the ex-girlfriend. He hadn't yet figured out how to get over it and start thinking of her as an employee. God knew that he didn't need any office drama surrounding him like the rest of the family held in abundance.

Stepping out of his car and locking it with the remote, he leaned up against the side of the car and pulled out the pack of cigarettes he had impulsively picked up while getting gas, opened up the pack and pulled one out. Shoving the pack inside his suit jacket, he grabbed his lighter and lit up, dimly remembering the gobs of nicotine gum he had swallowed and the the patches he wore to quit years ago. He used to pride himself on being the only one in his family to be successful at kicking the habit and his mother's lung cancer wasn't enough for him to stick to it.

Shira had used stress to excuse her smoking and Honor didn't bother using an excuse. One selling point, would be the annoyed expression on Mitchum's face if he could see him at this moment. Taking a long drag, Logan spotted Julie crossing the garage and nodded at her, somewhat satisfied by her frown of disapproval and offered her one of his trademark charming smiles after exhaling. This seemed to annoy her further as she briskly entered the building. Logan laughed as he took one more drag before discarding the butt of the cigarette on the parking garage floor, pushing away from his car to cross the garage and enter the building. It was Friday, and he'd ordered another catered lunch, and hopefully Rory would not go back on her agreement to discuss what his father wanted from the paper this morning. He'd finally pinned her down on a time late Thursday, but he wasn't hopeful. She had avoided him since he'd gotten home a couple of weeks before that.

It was nearly nine, but Rory was already at her desk, evaluating something. He leaned against the door frame, uncertain of his welcome. "When do you want to talk about the paper?"

"Give me a few minutes, and then we can talk, you can have a seat if you want," she said, gesturing to the chairs in front of her desk and going back to the papers in front of her. She was just finishing the last page when Julie walked in. Rory sighed as she put the page on top of the stack, and handed them to Julie silently, and she walked out without a word.

Logan barely paid Julie any mind, not bothering to look at her as she came in and out. Rory noticed this and sat forward at her desk, her clasped hands atop it. "What can I do for you?" she asked.

"Just some routine stuff for me to report back to the office. Once I have that I can get out of your hair," Logan told her. "How are the sales going?"

"Sales are within their parameters, 102% of projections, subscriptions are up 20%, you know the usual," Rory told him.

"Any changes within the last three years?" he asked.

There was something off in his tone and overall manner, Rory decided but she decided to pay it no mind. "Nothing besides an increase of 40% two years ago and a reduction of retractions," she told him and expected some kind of positive response from him but none was forthcoming.

Instead he nodded. "Good," he said.

Rory stared at him. "Logan, are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he said. "How about the demographics?" he asked.

Rory wasn't convinced, something was definitely up. "The readers are mostly middle-aged business people or retirees. We're working on appealing to the younger generation, though there are a number of people who log on daily to the paper's website," she told him.

"I think appealing to the younger generation is a company-wide problem. I'm working on a plan to correct that," Logan told her.

"Logan, are you sure nothing is up?" Rory asked.

"I'm not here to talk about anything personal. This is a business setting, let's keep things strictly business," Logan told her.

His words seemed to strike a chord with her. "You didn't have a problem with personal in the business setting yesterday when you kissed me in this office," she reminded him.

"That was unprofessional of me and I apologize," Logan told her.

"You are unbelievable," Rory laughed. "Same old Logan Huntzberger as always isn't it," she continued, taking things badly. "I have to wonder just how many other women you mixed business with personal since you've been hovering around Daddy's papers...you know what, I don't want to know," she said and stood up. "I have somewhere to be and I'd like you not to be in my office when I get back," she told him as she grabbed her purse and brushed past him. On her way out she passed one of the interns, Ted? But she couldn't decide.

* * *

"You're serious?" Kate asked, completely aghast. "I thought he was probably doing that little blond bimbo from sales, Erica, or whatever her name is."

"I swear I heard it with my own ears," Ted said, placing his hand over his heart. "He was kissing Rory Gilmore in her office yesterday. She was the one that said that, not him."

"What else?"

"She, well, implied that he's been sleeping his way through the other papers," Ted informed her, and they heard someone clear their throat behind them.

Both Ted and Kate turned around to see none other than the main object of their gossip standing behind them with an unreadable expression on his face. Kate was the first to recover and plastered a smile to her face. "Mr. Huntzberger..." she began but Logan merely held up a hand.

"I expect a gossip columnist to have nothing better to do with his or her time than to gossip," he said.

Kate frowned at the implication but before she could get a word in he continued.

"I suppose you want me to set the record straight then," Logan said and by this time they had gained the attention of several members of the staff. He looked around then. "This should be heard by everyone so I'll say it only once. Most of you were here when HPG bought the paper nine years ago so you know that nine years ago my father gave your editor an internship here. At the time both Miss Gilmore and I attended Yale together and were on the Yale Daily News staff. at the time we had started dating and were together for three years before parting amicably." he looked at Ted and Kate as he continued. "Our former relationship will not be affecting our working relationship so if any of you are hoping for some inter-office drama then you will be disappointed."

* * *

  
"You are a god and I will worship at your alter for many cups of coffee to come, giving thanks for this precious cup of black gold," Rory rambled off to her regular coffee guy, Mark, who, used to her obsession with coffee, wisely let her rambling slide.

"For my best customer, it's always half off," Mark told her.

"Oh bless you!" Rory gushed and took a sip of the elixir of life, and breathed it in. "Almost as good as Luke's," she said.

Mark didn't comment, knowing better as he added the cup to her tab. From what he knew of her, Luke's meant home, and there was nothing like home, and he would never be able to compete.

Rory turned to her friend, Lane, then who had her own cup already and was waiting for her. "Ready?" she asked.

"How did you find time off for this outing?" Lane asked.

"Vacation hours. I'm only putting a half day today and besides, the less time around Logan the better," Rory told her as they walked out of the coffee house and began strolling down the street lined with shops.

"He's still hovering around the paper?" Lane asked.

"Yup. Sunday is his last day," Rory said, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

"So, have you told him yet?" Lane asked.

"Oh, God, not you too," Rory groaned.

"I didn't say anything!" Lane said in her own defense. It was true, Lane never pushed her on anything, only offering to listen and help her figure out what she wanted.

Rory sighed. "I'm sorry, but it seems like everyone I talk to is pressuring me to have 'the talk'," she apologized, using air quotes.

"You're going to have to eventually, what is stopping you?" Lane reasoned.

Rory was silent for a moment as she sipped her coffee. She sighed. "Part of me knows that he has a right to know about Nora and Nickolas, but, there is this voice reminding me of the four-hundred unanswered phone calls, voice mails, emails, and text messages begging him to call me and there is that time I was in California and I went to see him in person, only to see that he had clearly moved on with the typical-playboy-Huntzberger-pluck-of-the-many. There is a part of me that wants to be spiteful and not tell him, rationalizing that if he didn't want to know back then then he won't care now," she finally said.

"That's understandable," Lane told her supportively.

"Is it?" Rory asked uncertainly.

"Sure it is!" Lane told her. "He broke your heart and left you of take care of two kids even if he doesn't know about them. It's understandable that you would feel this way," she said.

"Try telling that to my family," Rory told her. "Argg!" she groaned. "But it's way more than that," she said and turned to her friend. "This week has been one roller coaster after another," she said as they walked into a store. "He hasn't changed in the least, you know and half the time I just want to hit him and then..."

"And then what?" Lane asked as they browsed a clothing rack.

"And then he smiles," Rory sighed. "You know that smile, the mischievous, charming, devil-may-care smile that is crafted to make you weak at the knees just by looking at it," she said.

"Oh, I know that smile," Lane agreed.

"And then I want to hit him again," Rory finished.

"Sounds like you have your hands full," Lane commented and held up a shirt. "What do you think about this?" she asked.

"Oh, it's you!" Rory told her.

Lane smiled and held the shirt up to herself and looked down and back at herself. "You think?" she asked.

"Definitely," Rory said. "You should get it," she said as she looked through the racks.

"So what event prompted this out-of-the blue shopping date?" Lane asked as they each selected a few items before they started towards the fitting rooms.

Rory sighed before answering. "We kissed," she said as they entered side by side fitting stalls. "Well, no, he kissed me," she corrected.

"Whoa, that's big," Lane stated.

"And then he tried to talk me into picking up where we left off as he kissed me," she finished.

"What did you say?" Lane asked.

"What do you think I said? I told him that it isn't in the realm of possibility," she told her.

"It sounds like he wants you back and I can't say that I blame him," Lane told her.

"Well that isn't going to happen, especially not after today," Rory told her shortly.

"Uh oh," Lane said. "What happened?" she asked.

"He comes in with this attitude and when I asked him about it he said that he doesn't want to talk about anything personal and wants to keep things business. Then I reminded him of the kiss and he said and I quote 'That was unprofessional of me and I apologize'," Rory told her, mimicking Logan's voice. "Is he serious!" she ranted.

"Ugg, what is wrong with guys? You don't give them what they want and they pull the passive-aggressive crap on you," she said as they exited the fitting room with the selections before walking up to the register to pay for them.

"What did Zack do now?" Rory asked as they payed and grabbed their bags.

"He wants another baby," Lane told her.

"And you don't?" Rory asked.

"I have my hands full with Steve and Kwan as well as the band stuff. We've finally gotten on track now that they're in school. Adding another baby will only push things further back," Lane reasoned. "Besides in order to have one we would have to disrupt our monthly schedule for sex," she added.

"Keeping the sex on a schedule to avoid getting pregnant, why didn't I think of that...oh right, because Logan wouldn't let me," Rory mocked.

"Hey, don't mock. I keep track of my cycle to know which days are my body's prime days for conceiving. Birth control isn't fool proof, you should know that, which is why the schedule works," Lane told her.

"Whatever works for you is fine," Rory told her.

"Oh did I tell you? Momma wants me to home school the kids. She even has a list of Seventh Day Adventists tutors lined up for me to choose from and she interviewed them and gave footnotes on the list for them. She says that as children of rock stars, they could be exposed to all kinds of bad things and this is the best way to take care of that," Lane told her.

"She's really taking the grandma thing to the extreme, isn't she," Rory commented.

"She wants to keep the boys from becoming dirty and untrustworthy for Korean mothers," Lane told her. "I told her that my kids will be fine and I'll raise them however I see fit," she finished.

"And what did she say to that?" Rory asked.

Lane waved a hand. "Oh you know what she usually does," she said dismissively.

"Ah, well, look on the bright side. She's mellowed out over the years," Rory reminded her.

"Yeah," Lane agreed as they walked into a store catering to children. "How's Nora doing? I heard she broke her arm," she asked.

"She's calling her cast her mummy arm and doesn't seem to be bothered at all," Rory told her as she browsed the sticker collection for the mentioned cast.

"That's a good thing," Lane said.

"Is it?" Rory asked absently.

"Absolutely!" Lane told her. "Nora always seems to bounce back instantly from everything. It shows that she has excellent preservation skills. That says you're doing a good job as a mother. I looks at all those helicopter moms out there and the overprotective ones all telling us that we're bad mothers because we don't hover around and we let our kids make their own mistakes and pick themselves up and I can't help but wonder where their kids will be in twenty years but then I look at yours and mine and I know that they'll be okay, you know," she finished.

Rory laughed. "Well we did turn out fine," she agreed. "Lunch?" she asked as she noticed the time.

"Something deep fried I beg of you," Lane said.

"Is there anything else?" Rory asked seriously before they laughed together. There were many things in a lifelong friendship that would never change.

* * *

Rory came back from lunch to find the staff scurrying about. When she stopped one of the staff to ask what was going on she was met with "Huntzberger."

Frowning, Rory pushed further on that. "What is Logan doing to have you guys running around like chickens with your heads cut off?" she asked.

"This past week he seemed so laid back and willing to lets us do our thing without any problem but today it's like a new side was unleashed. He's barking orders left and right," Lucile Velazquez said. "I better get these to the Patel," and with that she was off.

Rory watched her go before continuing on to her office. On her way there she came across a scene with Logan giving out orders to a rather scared looking Ted who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. It seemed that Logan's mood wasn't only directed at her today. She was debating on whether she should intervene when Julie appeared at her side.

"Insufferable, tyrannical, egotistic..." Julie ranted before calming herself. "The cat is out of the bag," she informed her.

Rory turned to Julie then. "What?" she asked, confused.

"Intern Ted overheard a conversation between you and Mr. Killjoy today and ran straight to Kate Douglas for some juicy gossip. The whole office is buzzing, by the way,"Julie informed her.

"What is being said?" Rory asked distantly.

"What do you think?" Julie retorted. "That your former relationship with the owner's son landed you the gig, so to speak, which is less than if Kate was able to spread her theories. Your ex interrupted Kate and Ted's gossip and decided to set the record straight publicly which actually sprouted what is currently being said and thus making his mood go south."

And there went the good mood she walked in with. Rory was furious at the insinuation that she only became editor because she used to date Logan rather than earning the job on her own merits. As Ted scurried away she made eye contact with Logan. Seeing a familiar recognition slide onto his face, she turned away and walked into her office with Julie beside her. She silently counted down in her head as she walked through the door and sat down behind her desk.

Julie had laid down a stack of articles on her desk just as the door opened with Logan walking in. Rory didn't even look up, diving right into the first article.

"Rory..."

"The printer called while you were out and said they couldn't print the next issue because of technical difficulties," Julie informed her as she too ignored Logan's presence.

"Rory..."

"Then we have to find another printer, we have to get that issue out," Rory told her.

"I've made several calls, they're all saying they're booked up," Julie told her.

"Rory..." This time he was in front of her with his hand covering the article she was editing on her desk so she couldn't ignore him.

"Make some more calls, there has to be one with an open slot," Rory said, looking at Julie.

"I'll get on it," Julie said, brushing past Logan on her way out.

Rory jabbed the tip of her pen into Logan's hand faster than he could move it out of the way.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" Logan snapped.

"Go away, Logan," Rory ordered.

"Ah...no," he told her.

Rory frowned. "What do you want?" she demanded irritably, finally looking at him.

Logan silently fumbled for an answer in his mind.

Rory set her pen down and looked him in the eye, crossing her arms in front of her. "You came in here to say something so I suggest that you spit it out," she told him.

"Is this how it's going to be between us now?" Logan asked, voicing his own thoughts from the past week.

"I don't know what you mean," Rory told him feigning indifference.

"This animosity between us. It didn't used to exist. We used to be..."

"Used to be what, Logan?" Rory asked.

Logan sighed and rand a hand through his hair. "I don't know," he admitted. "I don't know if there is a word to describe what was between us."

Rory closed her eyes momentarily. "Obviously it wasn't as great as we once thought," she said and turned back to the papers on her desk.

Logan stared at her, that one sentence striking a chord with him. "What is that supposed to mean?" he demanded.

"What I said was pretty self-explanatory, Logan," Rory told him.

"Not to me it wasn't," he pointed out.

"Well I don't know how much clearer I could have been other than to say that if what we had six years ago was so great then it might not have been so easy for you to get over," Rory told him.

"Easy to get over?" Logan sputtered. "You think..." He took a deep breath. "Look, I'm sorry if my presence here has upset you, but shouldn't there be some civility here between us?" he asked.

Rory considered this. "Civility?" she mulled. "And that's all?" she asked. "No secret ploys to try to sweep me off my feet or to get back together?"

"Civility to start with at least," Logan agreed and thought it over, "And maybe we could become friends," he suggested.

Rory gave him a look before responding. "I remember you telling me that you didn't want to be friends," she reminded him.

"I take it back then."

"You can't take it back, Logan. You made that final," Rory told him.

"How did I make that final?" Logan challenged.

"See, we can't even have a conversation without it turning into an argument," Rory pointed out.

"You're making it an argument," he pointed out. At her pointed look, he tried a different tactic. Okay, how about we start out small then," he proposed, "Or we could start over..."

"And how do you propose that we start over?" Rory asked, her eyebrow raised skeptically.

Logan shrugged his shoulders and stared through the office window. "How you you think we start over?" he asked softly.

"I don't know, Logan, but you gave me no choice six years ago, and now I have no incentive to give you one," she said, turning her attention back to her work.

"We could go out for coffee, that is still something that you do, isn't it?" he asked, looking back at her, away from the window.

"No, Logan. There's nothing in this but pain. It's best not to start," she said without looking up.

He sighed. "You don't know that."

"I do. You have spent six years showing me that it's your way or no way, and if you do that again..." she trailed off, her pen going still for a second, then she shook herself, going back to where she'd left off.

"But things are different now. I'm different. You're different," he said as he walked up to her desk.

She sighed, looking up at him. "But what's between us isn't different, it can't be."

"Are you seeing someone else then?" he asked, jealousy suddenly flaring slightly.

"No, Logan, I..." she was torn about telling him something, but if she was really single, then he saw his opening.

"Go out to dinner with me," Logan blurted out.

"What?..No!" Rory snapped.

"Why not?" Logan demanded, looking at her, his body language telling him she was afraid, far more afraid than he thought reasonable. He wasn't that scary. And anger, at the idea that they could just pick up where they'd left off, probably.

"Because I already told you that isn't going to happen!" Rory snapped at him.

"You haven't given any real reason why not," Logan argued.

"I don't need a reason. It didn't work before and that hasn't changed just because you magically show back up and want it to."

"As I remember it, things were working just fine," he countered.

Rory gave him a calculating look. "You know what? I just realized something. There only reason you keep pursuing this is because I refuse to say yes and its a challenge for you because you're not used to being turned down," she accused pointedly.

"That is just presumptive and insulting," Logan snapped.

Rory crossed her arms a looked at him disgruntledly. "Then tell me what else it could be?" she challenged and held up a hand when he started to speak. "And please, don't say that you still love me because there is no way I'll believe that one," she interrupted.

Logan narrowed his eyes. "Since when did you become so bitter?" he asked instead.

She gave him a semi-startled look. "I am not bitter!" she snapped.

"You're not?" he asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

"I'm not," she reaffirmed, not bothering to looking up at him.

Logan crossed his arms and leaned against the desk, giving her an intent look. "See this is a perfect example for why I avoid getting into a relationship, it makes things way too messy."

Rory's eyes narrowed. "Does that mean that you think the whole three years we were together was a mistake?"

Logan gave her an assessing look and shrugged. "You tell me," he said nonchalantly, gauging her reaction.

Rory didn't say anything, she just gave him an incredulous look. Her first reaction had been hurt by his response before anger set it. A mistake? "You, Logan Huntzberger, are a class A, arrogant, self-serving, jackass!" she snapped.

Logan noted once again that angry worked for her as her eyes narrowed and their normally azure hue took on a sharper cobalt hue and her features became sharper, like a feline ready to pounce. To him, it was only one step closer to the sexiest he had seen her. The only thought he could come up with was that he wanted to see her eyes change to a sapphire hue as he remembered when she was turned on. So he kissed her, interrupting her rant, pulled her closer and at first she responded but as his hands traveled south, Rory pulled away from him and Logan barely had time to prepare before her palm collided with the side of his face.

His cheek stung from the impact, turning back to look at her, he was speechless from shock. It wasn't the first time a woman had slapped him but it was the first time that Rory had done so, and he couldn't have seen it coming from a mile away. But it wasn't anger that he saw reflected in her eyes but pain. She turned from him abruptly, gathering her purse, cloak and the bag she had brought in, walking towards the door. Panicked, Logan knew that they couldn't leave it like this and reached out to grasp her arm. "Rory..." he tried to start but she refused to even look at him.

"Let go of me!" she snapped, pulling her arm from and walking out the door, determined not to let him or anyone else see how much his words had hurt her.

-

* * *

The parking garage offered the briefest reprieve from the storm inside her office. The sound of her heels echoed off of the concrete and she briskly walked to her car, giving the Porsche parked in her spot a heated glare before she reached her car and stepped in, throwing her purse and everything she had taken with her out of the office into the back seat unceremoniously. She inserted the key into the ignition and gripped the steering wheel with her shaking hands.

How dare he do this to her. How dare he come waltzing back, thinking that the six years of nothing changed nothing between them, that it didn't stand in the way of them starting all over again and then when he didn't get his way, get pissy about it, treating her like an insubordinate nobody! Rory was angry and she had every right to be. He left! He decided that he didn't want anything to do with her. He said all or nothing and left and now he wanted her back? Logan did not get to change his mind after the past six years.

Being in the same room as Logan made Rory feel things she had long forgotten. It didn't matter that that an almost undeniable electric force still drew them together. It didn't matter that being in his arms, that the kiss they shared felt like home. Rory would never forget that he walked away from her. She would never be able to forget how he seemed to just not love her enough to answer the phone even when she begged him to call her in voicemail. He had left her completely broken and what was more was that he didn't just leave her. Even if Rory could learn to forgive Logan, she wouldn't, couldn't trust him with her heart again. And she was terrified of trusting him with her babies' hearts. She refused to allow her children to ever feel the pain of disappointment and making excuse after excuse for a father they desperately needed to love them enough to put them first. She never once wanted her children to feel like they weren't enough. If that meant prolonging telling Logan about them, then so be it.

The stress from the last four days finally got to Rory as she rested her forehead against the steering wheel, feeling like crying for the first time in a very long time. Why was it that Logan could do this to her? Bring her up and down with little effort? She couldn't let him continue to do this. She needed a plan, a backup plan. Raising her head, she knew her only option to keep Logan at arm's length. She had to prove to him that she has moved on, that she didn't need him nor want him around. And there really was no other way around that than make the phone call she had avoided.

John James Frost was a society man, a second son, and a writer, like his ancestor, Robert Frost. She and Jack had struck up a friendship where he hinted at a deeper interest every time she saw him. The biggest selling point for Jack was that he wasn't Logan. That was something she was looking for at the moment. After fishing for her phone, Rory dialed the appropriate number, reaching voicemail. "Hey, Jack, it's Rory Gilmore. I was wondering if your offer for drinks and a dinner was still on the table because I would like very much to accept," she said into the phone before hanging up and dropping her phone in the passenger seat before pulling out of the parking space with more speed than she intended and when she backed into another car. She looked to see that it was Logan's Porsche, and judging by the look on Logan's face as he stood by the elevator, she knew that it was bad. Unfortunately she didn't have the energy to get into it again with Logan or else she would have exchanged insurance information. Instead, she just drove off out of the garage.


	5. Letter To My Readers

To my readers,

I know it has been a while since I posted an update for We Belong Together, but rest assured, I am working on it. In fact I have about nine more chapters mapped out and halfway finished. But I had changed my mind on some of the content and the direction of the scenes so I have to do some rewriting and finish the next chapter. I am also working on another project in the mean time. I will be continuing this story and I have not yet abandoned it.

On an unrelated note. I had posted this story on another fanfiction site, Black White and Read, which is a Gilmore Girls fanfiction site. I had to delete my story from it because I was being bombarded with spam in the form of reviews. The spam reviews were from only one person and only on the first chapter, but they accumulated to over 400 of spam reviews. When I tried to delete the reviews, I got a message telling me that I was not authorized to delete the reviews and I also was given no option to block this spammer. I sent several complaints to the administration but was ignored. I do not recommend to anyone to post their fics on that site because of the spam abuse that they allow. I felt that I should spread the word before anyone else became a victim.

Charlie.


End file.
